Dead Island 2: Tips and Tricks Dead Island 2 guide, tips

This page of the guide contains beginner's tips for Dead Island 2. You will find here, among other things, tips related to combat, crafting items, and exploration.

Last update: 20 April 2023

On this page of our Dead Island 2 guide, we supply a list of the most important starting tips, which will help you clear any initial hesitation and uncertainty at the beginning of the game. Tips broach subjects like fast zombie killing, crafting, and exploration.

• Use the jump kick
• Use the environment to your advantage
• Sell unused weapons to Traders
• Avoid zombies with skull icon
• Instead of buying weapons, upgrade old ones
• Loot containers
• Locked buildings often allow access through alternative entrances

Use the jump kick

Initially, your weapons don't pack much of a punch or do much damage. A good option for the beginning of the game is using the jump kick, available through Jump Kick Skill Card. This attack deals a lot of damage and has much Force, often toppling struck opponents.

Usually, 2 such kicks are enough to down a zombie, and you can follow that up with a stomp to finish the opponent. This is a good way to kill single opponents, and at the same time, save weapon durability.

Use the environment to your advantage

If you see a large group of zombies that you need to eliminate, instead of making do with standard means (which will see you spend a lot of resources and consumables), use the opportunities provided by the environment. No matter the location you're in, there are many opportunities around - water, fuel, and acid canisters, exploding barrels, puddles. All this can be used to quickly dispose of the threat.

Before taking on a large group, take a moment to look around and use the aforementioned objects to exterminate the dead quickly.

Sell unused weapons to Traders

During your adventures in LA, you'll find a lot of deadly tools. However, the inventory quickly fills up, and when it is full, you won't be able to take more weapons - you can only replace them. To this end, consider selling weapons that you don't use to free up slots and quickly get in possession of a lot of cash.

If you are short on crafting materials, and there is no Trader nearby, you can disassemble weapons. However, this option isn't that worthwhile, as crafting materials are found in abundance in the world.

Avoid zombies with skull icon

In general, thanks to level scaling, zombies will always be a challenge, but a light one at that. When it comes to zombies marked with skull icon, the situation is much more difficult. They are characterized by high survivability, and one hit from them is enough to get you killed.

This is all introduced to lock certain parts of the map from nosy explorers, and this is explained by your hero being too weak to continue. Gain a higher Slayer level through completing story and side quests, and with time the skulls will dissapear and the same zombies won't be a challenge for you.

Instead of buying weapons, upgrade old ones

To begin - weapons are found in abundance in the world - you can loot them from bodies, search containers for them, or in certain locations, pick them up straight from the floor. Nevertheless, the tactic of disposing of the weapon right after its durability reaches zero is not viable or fun in the long run - the more efficient option is to upgrade and repair weapons that you use. Admittedly, the upkeep and upgrades for weapons cost a lot, but this will work out better, as you don't have to spend crafting materials to add perks to new weapons, and more so that the rarer perks are hard to come by. To view more on the subject, visit Upgrading and modifying weapons.

Loot containers

It may happen that after completing a quest, you'll receive a weapon as a reward, but your inventory is full. Such items land in the locker, in a special tab called Unclaimed Property. It is worth checking out the tab from time to time, because even if the particular weapon is of no use to you, you can move it to your inventory and sell or disassemble it for parts from there. More on the subject of inventory on Can the inventory be increased?.

Locked buildings often allow access through alternative entrances

Many times it will turn out that a given entrance to the building is completely locked. Remember, however, that even you don't have the means to enter, there are alternative entrances. If the room has glass, you can destroy it (watch out for the alarm - on the How to disable the alarm? page we described how to do it). If the door has a maglock, you have to destroy all electrical boxes. You can read more on the page How to turn off the alarm?