Dead Island 2 – Haus Review

Dead Island 2 didn’t exactly set the world on fire earlier this year, but for a game that has gone through some extremely troubled development, it turned out rather fine, providing some fun zombie-slaying action enriched by humorous writing and a story that never takes itself seriously.

Still having plenty of wacky stories to tell in Hell-A, Dambuster Studios is set to expand the game with multiple expansions, and the first of them, Haus, is now available on all formats. Unfortunately, if you have been waiting for something to spice up the experience and justify a return to Hell-A, you will be disappointed, as this expansion doesn’t really bring anything new to the table both in narrative and gameplay terms.

The Haus DLC is focused on a wacky cult whose leader predicted the zombie apocalypse before it actually happened. Having received their invitation, your main character travels, or rather, gets transported to the cult’s headquarters to be initiated into it and perform all sorts of crazy feats like fighting a massive zombie dressed like a pig, feats that are absolutely in line with the craziness seen in the base game. While the story takes an unexpected and somewhat hard-to-justify turn in the second half, the writing makes it compelling enough with the same humor that permeates the base game’s tale. With just two main story missions, the expansion doesn’t have enough time to flesh out the cult properly, but this isn’t an entirely bad thing, considering how dull the gameplay feels even a few minutes in.

Maybe describing the gameplay as dull may be a little excessive, but that is what most players who already completed the game once will think of the expansion. The Haus DLC is almost identical to the base game, featuring the same enemy types and a limited number of gameplay additions, which include a few new Skill Cards that don’t really shake up builds that much and a new weapon, the Crossbow, which packs quite a punch, feels pretty nice to use and is required to destroy the Dark Brains obstacles. The lack of new combat scenarios or gimmicks definitely hurts the experience, as you will be mostly using the same weapons and taking advantage of the same environmental elements to not end up in a zombie’s belly that are available in the base game.

While lacking any new gimmick, exploring the new location featured in the Haus DLC actually feels good. The cult’s headquarters is among the most beautiful locations in the game, managing to seamlessly combine its gorgeous interiors with some outside environments, which are actually rooms inside the manor fashioned to look so. Stability is just as polished as visuals, and I have encountered no issues whatsoever while I made my way through vicious zombie hordes once again.

At the end of the day, the Dead Island 2 Haus DLC is nothing more than a quick romp that can be moderately fun if played in the middle of the campaign for a little 2 hours or so diversion, but it simply doesn’t offer enough for returning players, as it only exacerbates how the game tends to become a little repetitive a dozen hours in.

Review code provided by the publisher.

Dead Island 2 – Haus DLC

The Dead Island 2 Haus DLC is a very small expansion that doesn’t bring anything substantially new to the experience. Its brevity prevents it from overstaying its welcome, but the additionl of a cool crossbow weapon is not enough to get most players to return to Hell-A so soon.