Update: Dead Island Release Sees Serious Steam Issues

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Dead Island has been released today and it’s just possible that publisher Deep Silver have released an unfinished developer’s version of the game on Steam, the digital distribution platform.

Dead Island may have become Dev Island for Steam users as a whole host of glitches, bugs and other assorted irritations have been flooding in. At the time of writing, neither Dead Island‘s developer Techland nor the publisher Deep Silver have confirmed that this is the case, but it would explain a lot.

Note that this stream of reported glitches has stemmed from Steam gamers only, not from those who bought a physical retail copy of Dead Island.

While this could be an extremely embarrassing development for Techland and Deep Silver, the general outlook for their zombie-action-slash-RPG-slash-slashing-slashfest is still good. Ever since that heartrending backwards trailer dropped six months ago there’s been more than a few interested glances cast in the game’s direction.

Set in an idyllic island of the coast of Papua New Guinea, Dead Island sees you trying to simply survive and escape the hellish nightmare that was up until recently a cocktail-swilling haven of heavenly relaxation. You have the choice of four distinct characters to guide through the knee-deep gore of assorted holidaymaker leftovers, no doubt discovering more about yourself, your fellow survivors and the cause of the disaster along the way.

Sound familiar? That’s because a lot of zombie games tend to follow that standard opening of “Suddenly zombies are here. Time to go to somewhere less zombified.” But while Dead Island doesn’t sound all that original at first glance compared to the slew of zombie titles released in recent years, it’s RPG elements and heavy concentration on melee combat set it apart from the crowd (or should that be milling, shambling horde?)

Most zombie games will have you mowing down wave after wave of the undead with a veritable arsenal of firearms. Games like Left for Dead manage this very well and there’s a certain joy to be had in blowing apart chunks o’corpse with some serious hardware.

However, Dead Island strikes more of a balance between shooting and melee, with players being able to craft their own rudimentary weapons out of items they find lying around in the wreckage of the resort. These do-it-yourself hitting sticks and other gubbins also have a durability rating and need to be patched up periodically.

Similarly, Dead Island‘s levelling up element is something new to zombie games and being able to customize your character to fit your preferred style of survival could be a big hit with players who want to see something markedly different from the genre.

Updates on the Steam error situation to follow, along with a Dead Island review in the near future.

UPDATE: According to Kotaku, Deep Silver have responded to the problem, saying:

“We deeply regret that an incorrect version of Dead Island was inadvertently made available to players on Steam launch in North America. We are very sorry for any issues you may have experienced while playing the game – the correct, patched version will be made available to North American players ASAP.”

So if you bought the game through Steam, your salvation is soon at hand. Salvation from buggy versions, that is. Finding salvation from zombies is still your responsibility.