Q&A: Creative Director Alex Toplansky Speaks On Dead Island: Riptide

We had the chance to fire a few questions to Creative Producer on Dead Island: Riptide, Alex Toplansky which should hopefully answer what we know about the game, especially for those who are new to the series and those who are on the fence about picking up the new game.

Q: For those who may be new to the Dead Island games, could you give a quick rundown on what Dead Island is all about? Dead Island is all about bashing zombies in a tropical paradise with your friends using a huge array of brutal, improvised weaponry that you can build. Q: Are we looking at a sequel to the original?

Riptide is not a sequel to Dead Island, but the next installment in its saga. We get a chance to directly follow what happened at the end of the original game and continue the story of the heroes together. We didn’t want to completely reinvent the wheel here, and features like importing your character from the original game made us want to keep some aspects of the game consistent. That said, Riptide is certainly a whole new experience with a lot of content to explore.

Q: Is the game accessible to those who didn’t play the previous one? Or would it be more advantageous to have played the original?

The biggest advantage of having played the previous game is our character import feature, which lets returning players start Riptide with their original Dead Island character’s level and skills. You definitely won’t be left out as a new player though. The adaptive difficulty in Riptide ensures that high-level and low-level players can play together without anyone feeling like they can’t contribute in multiplayer.

Q: What kinds of improvements have been made to the mechanics that makes this Dead Island a stronger game?

Right down to the core, we made some great improvements to the fluidity of zombie physics and animation, and we’ve seen some very cool moments emerge, like a zombie that backflips over an obstacle because of a certain impact. There have been lots of other chances to revamp game systems like firearms, which have better targeting in Riptide. The UI has been enhanced as well, particularly the way elements like quickslots are set up and managed.

Q: How much of an influence did the community have when it came to the development of the latest game?

Some of our favourite additions to the game were inspired directly from fan feedback. Videos of zombies being kicked 30 feet back or rapid-fire melee attacks all helped to inspire John Morgan’s new abilities. We also got great input from fans about new types of weapon mods, and that helped to guide us to create more explosive weapons, for example.

Dead Island: Riptide is out now for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC and be on the lookout for our review which is coming soon! For more info visit - http://deadisland.deepsilver.com/