When it comes to the long-standing sub-genre of zombie horror games, developers really do need to go a bit off of the deep end in order to make the experience of their title all the more enticing. In the case of Deep Silver’s Dead Island 2, many have praised its humor and gore as being what makes it stand apart from the rest. With the game’s first DLC expansion; Haus just recently released, players can expect even further humorous moments, though the gameplay may leave a bit to be desired.

Story and Gameplay

When it comes to story, Dead Island 2’s Haus DLC definitely has quite a bit to offer. There’s comedy, dread, and some larger-than-life things that it’s trying to tell in order to flesh out more of the world’s lore. I found it extremely interesting and was often motivated to push through the hordes of undead, just to see where the story would go next. And that’s because of its nicely crafted maze-like trajectory throughout.

As for the gameplay, I mostly found it to be the run-of-the-mill generic type of zombie killing you’d expect by now. Most of the game is one of those “go here and retrieve this”, to only then be ambushed by a horde of zombies with a main antagonistic force or special zombie to make things tougher. It was fine at the beginning, but the fun could only last so long until it became apparent that gameplay was taking a backseat to the story and setting.

But that leads me to the actual level design. When it comes to the places you’ll be dispatching the undead in throughout Haus, it’s actually pretty captivating. The entire thing has this sort of dream-like vibe to it with flourishes of Portal 2’s themes of uncanny environments. I loved it. It made it feel like going through various haunted houses, just like a small contained Halloween Horror Nights experience.

Feedback

My biggest complaint about Haus is the fact that most of its gameplay is by and large the same thing you’ve certainly done before not just in Dead Island 2 but all of the other zombie games out there. The environments are worth exploring, but I think that more could have been experimented with in order to make gameplay as exciting as everything else offered here.

Conclusion

Though I wasn’t a fan of the gameplay so much with Haus, the setting and themes carried out were extremely enjoyable from start to finish, and it perfectly sets up what’s next to come for Slayers as Dead Island 2 is far from over with the stories that it wants to tell. And for its modest $12.99 price, you really can’t go wrong with playing it for yourself if you still need some spooky vibes to carry you past the end of the spooky season.