We’ve never been particularly fond of the Dead Island series. The concept of an open-world zombie game with online co-op play is alluring, especially given the sundrenched location of the original, but the games themselves are full of undeveloped ideas and have a general whiff of ineptness about them.
As such, we’re more interested in Dead Island Definitive Collection‘s bonus game than the upcoming 1080p remasters of Dead Island and its similarly lacking sequel Dead Island Riptide.
A product listing for Dead Island Retro Revenge – to give it a name – went live on Xbox.com yesterday revealing screenshots and developer info, along with a release date that poses a couple of questions.
San Diego based Empty Clip are at the helm of the 16-bit style side-scrolling brawler, whose back catalogue includes PC and console conversions of Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine, BIT.TRIP Fate, BIT.TRIP Void and the Nintendo DS version of Diner Dash. Suffice to say, they’re well-versed with games with retro flare; the right team for the job of turning Dead Island into a 16-bit throwback.
The plot (if you can call it that) sees portly protagonist Max slaying zombies across Californian turf in order to save his beloved cat. Super weapons, “crazy†combos, power-ups and magic attacks – of all things – play a part in zombie slaying, and it looks like it’s designed with score-chasing in mind as one screenshot shows extra points being dished out for dismemberment.
Oddly, the release date is down as 1st August, whereas Dead Island Definitive Collection – which includes Retro Revenge – is due 31st May. This could mean two (well, three) things. Either Retro Revenge is still some way off from completion and won’t be ready at launch, or 1st August is when it’ll become available as a standalone download. The third possible conclusion? That date is simply an error.
Launching at a later date would prove beneficial for Deep Silver, preventing fans from trading-in copies beforehand. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.