Dead Island 2 – SoLa Review

Dead Island 2 is far from one of the best games released in 2023, but the combination of a wacky yet engaging story and fun zombie-slaying gameplay made it worth a play for those looking for something compact and a little mindless to play. Following last year’s Haus expansion, which added very little to the experience, the second entry in the series developed by Dambuster Studios has been expanded further with the SoLa DLC, which is a little more worthwhile than the previous expansion despite not really shaking up the base game’s formula a whole lot.

The Dead Island 2 SoLa expansion is set in a new area called The Valley, which can be accessed after completing The Giant Slayer main story quest via the in-game map. Before the zombie outbreak that turned Los Angeles into Hell-A, the area was invaded by countless festival-goers, not knowing that they would turn into mindless zombies by a mysterious psychedelic beat. Determined to get to the heart of the matter, the new character Grace enlists your help to discover the origins of the phenomenon and put an end to it for good.

Despite its short length, around two or so, the SoLa story is a definite step up from the Haus story, which felt more like a side story with little to do with the main campaign. Investigating the mysterious beat feels way more organic with the main plot, as the new expansion’s story fills in some gaps of the main quest, features another appearance from a character seen in the base game, and even adds some additional lore via optional collectibles. All in all, the SoLa expansion delivers more of the same craziness seen in the base game, so those who loved roaming the streets of zombie-infested Los Angeles in search of other mad survivors will find plenty to like here as well.

Delivering more of what made Dead Island 2 what it is is the SoLa expansion’s greatest strength and weakness, however. The expansion, unfortunately, does nothing to bring in players who may not have liked the base game’s straightforward and somewhat repetitive experience.

While The Valley is a nicely designed location that would have no trouble belonging to the base game, it doesn’t offer much else past the base game’s locations. However, it is most definitely a well-designed location, especially thanks to how each area of the sprawling festival grounds is used to maximum efficacy in creating some solid setpieces. The same amount of care, sadly, is absent from the side locations, of which there are enough to extend the expansion’s playtime up to a few more hours, as they don’t offer anything truly meaningful.

Thankfully, besides the mostly well-designed new location, the SoLa expansion does add something substantial in terms of weapons, curveballs, enemies, and mission types. While not all worthwhile, most of them are extremely welcome additions that provide players with new tools to destroy the hordes of zombies, which, as mentioned, are made more fearful by the addition of the Whipper and the Clutter, new zombie types that require players to change their approach to defeat without taking heavy damage. The only new enemy that should have been better designed is the final boss, which is extremely annoying to take down, even with the proper preparation and strategy. All of these additions, however, do little to fix what is, in my opinion, the biggest issue of the Dead Island 2 experience: the repetitive gameplay. As zombie-slaying remains the main activity of the experience, even in the expansion, things become stale very quickly, possibly even more than in the base game. After spending over 30 hours in Hell-A, it’s hard to feel excited about more mindless zombie slaying, no matter how satisfying it may feel for a couple of hours or so.

At the end of the day, the Dead Island 2 SoLa DLC is a better addition to the experience than the Haus DLC, but it does little to fix the issues of the core experience, settling on offering more of the same, which is entirely fine for those who liked the base game. Everyone else will hardly change their opinion on the game by Dambuster Studios without a major overhaul of the experience, which is better reserved for a full-blown sequel rather than an expansion.

PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

Dead Island 2 – SoLa DLC

The Dead Island 2 SoLa DLC is a much better expansion than the previous one, featuring the same enticing blend of wacky characters and explosive zombie slaying action of the base game. The new additions, however, don’t expand the core gameplay significantly, making the expansion a worthy purchase only for the most die-hard fans of Dambuster Studios’ rendition of zombie-infested Los Angeles.