Dead Island 2 is finally here and its flesh-peeling gore system is everything players hoped for

Dead Island 2
(Image credit: Deep Silver)

Update - April 21: Remember that lovingly gory flesh tech in Dead Island 2? Well, you can finally experience its grisly wonders for yourself, and as we said in our Dead Island 2 review, it's genuinely one of the best parts of the entire game. 

"It's so gloriously wet and horrible that I ended up with an arsenal of acid-only weapons, perfecting the art of stacking the damage just enough to melt them away rather than killing them outright," our own Leon Hurley wrote. "The only thing that stopped me completely playing this as a 30-hour zombie liquefying simulator was the presence of acid resistant enemies. FINE. I'll use something else…"

Original story follows...

After new Dead Island 2 gameplay hit the internet yesterday, fans are seriously impressed by the new "Flesh" system.

14 minutes of brand new Dead Island 2 gameplay can be seen just below, which is basically a walkthrough of the sequel's core systems, like characters, locations, and weapons. Additionally, there's an introduction to what the developers have dubbed the charming "Flesh" system around the one-minute 40-second mark.

This wildly gory system is basically focused on letting you kill zombies in the most chaotic ways possible. Different parts of zombie's bodies will be completely obliterated if you're targeting them with a weapon - we can see someone's face literally punched in the new gameplay footage, and another zombie's leg falls off when it's short a few times.

Turns out Dead Island 2 are seriously into the amped-up gore. The post just below on the Dead Island-dedicated subreddit, for example, highlights the gore as one thing the fan is most excited for. Considering we've been waiting nearly a decade for Dead Island 2 to actually launch, that's some pretty high praise for the new Flesh system.

Elsewhere on the subreddit, one user has even slowed down one gameplay clip to give others a better look at the Flesh system. The zombie the video focuses on literally has their skin taken off by a grenade explosion, before having their head removed from their body by a well-placed melee attack.

Dead Island 2 sure isn't for the faint of heart. This brings to mind Capcom's stellar Resident Evil 2 remake in 2019, which also incorporated a system whereby players could hack off any part of a zombie with enough bullets. That wasn't always easy to see though, as bullets are precious in the Capcom survival horror game, whereas Dead Island 2 looks to be going to give you plenty more opportunities to rip zombies limb from limb.

Dead Island 2 finally launches next month on April 21, after spending the better part of a decade in development hell across multiple studios.

We'd like to see players taking advantage of the new gore system in Dead Island 2 through Amazon Alexa, where you can play the game with just your voice.

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.