Dead Island continues to be the series that I don’t hear many people asking to keep on giving, but keeps on giving nonetheless. Next up is Retro Revenge, a side-scrolling, 2D, pseudo-16-bit, cat-centric beat ‘em up set in the Dead Island universe (that being “a particularly sweary zombie apocalypse and something something backwards trailers). It’s out this Summer, both on its own and as part of a bundle with the first two DIs.

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Zombie-slaying FPS-RPG Dead Island [official site] and its 2013 expandalone Dead Island Riptide are being “remastered” in Definitive Editions – more relatively-recent games coming our way again with a new swing in their step after being prettied up for the latest consoles. Too bad someone already took the name Deathinitive Edition, huh?

Out of curiosity, I went back to see what RPS said in 2011 when Dead Island [official site] was re-announced with That Trailer. I’m almost disappointed by John’s restraint. I was hoping someone would’ve declared it “The Citizen Kane> of Game Trailers” and I’d get to be gittish to them tomorrow. Curses. Not even “The Old Yeller> of Game Trailers”!

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Polish studio Techland may have created open-world zombie-smashing FPS-RPG Dead Island, but publishers Deep Silver got the rights. That’s how come Deep Silver went on to have folk make daft things like the MOBA-y Dead Island: Epidemic and baffling drek Escape Island while Techland went on to make another open-world zombie-smashing FPS-RPG in Dying Light.

Straight-up sequel Dead Island 2 [official site] was in the works at Spec Ops: The Line devs Yager, and this one actually looked promising. But its future is now looking as safe as a lecherous, wisecracking wino in a zombie flick, as Deep Silver have announced Yager are off the game.

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Here is my dilemma. It s nice, I think, to approach supporter posts with a desire to be more personal, more intimate, to shine the light on ourselves a little more brightly. Or to be even more self-indulgent than ever, if you d prefer to think of it that way. So when considering what to write about in my weekly supporter column, I like to think about what s going on in my life, pick a lens to look through. Except, four weeks ago my first son was born, and good grief, who wants to hear about that?

Oh my goodness, how many more games-journalists-becoming-parents can the internet cope with? And who is it for? People without kids are likely far less interested to read about an experience they don t relate to. People who don t want kids and never intend to have them can feel marginalised, excluded. People who want kids and haven t yet, or those who want them and cannot have them, can find the whole topic misery-inducing. (My wife and I were trying for three years before ours came along, and I can testify that it s really shit.) And people with kids already went through it, roll their eyes at the naivety of it, or don t want to be reminded of it. Can the internet hold another, How I game with my kid in my arm article, without keeling over and just collapsing on the floor?

Let s find out!

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Take one pretty fun co-op game, ladle cash over the top, then persist with sheer bloody-mindedness and you too could have yourself A Franchise. Turns out, three Dead Island games are in the works: straight-up sequel Dead Island 2, the MOBA-ish Dead Island Epidemic, and now publishers Deep Silver have announced Escape Dead Island. It’s a third-person action-y sort of thing (you know, like this), with a story that makes me think of Far Cry 3 with its rich kids and trippy hallucinations.

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I had not particularly noted Dead Island: Epidemic‘s passage into Early Access. I’d seen enough games chasing the dream of League of Legends and Dota 2‘s success with only a few small new idea. And it had the temerity to coin its own cutesy genre name, Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena! However, after watching a new gameplay trailer explain what it’s up to, I’m at the very least interested. Not enough to pay for the beta of a game that’ll be free-to-play at launch, mind.

While the majority of MOBAs (do I still need to explain this dreadful name?) seem to mostly duplicate LoL or Dota, Dead Island: Epidemic takes their ideas of per-match progression and slap them into something a bit more like Diablo III with a sizeable PvE side.

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In comparison to the original Dead Island trailer, Dead Island 2′s announcement video is more honest than Abe and Cherry Tree Washington combined. You remember that trailer, right? The one that broke a thousand hearts when it debuted and then broke them again when the game was more like a first-person Dead Rising than a mourning simulator? Dead Island 2 is just holding its hands in the air and admitting to the world that it’s at the dafter end of the zombie spectrum. No introspection here – it’s a game about beautiful beach bodies rotting in the sun while the world points, laughs and decapitates the poor sods.

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You’ve got to get your Humble Bundles out when guests come over, haven’t you. Show them the collection, that’s right. They always say they enjoy looking, don’t they, though they do ask why you never play any of them. They don’t get get it, do they, but that’s fine. You’ve got your collection, all tidy and shiny in those pewter frames. Those frames with a gap in the middle. That dreadful, gaping gap that creeps into your dreams and you awake screaming. The Humble Bundle you missed.

Chin up, chuck! You might catch it again. The Humble folks are running a fortnight of daily pay-what-you-want Humble Bundles–some old favourites and some new hopefuls–so fingers crossed That One That Got Away comes around again.

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Zombies, traditionally speaking, are slow. Not Dying Light‘s zombies, though. Once light dies and night falls, the shambling undead become spry as acrobats equipped with the most cutting-edge of Moon Shoes (Moon Shoes!). Except when they don’t. I guess Techland is developing Dying Light in a place where it’s perpetually daytime, because the parkour-infused zombo-clobberer’s been delayed into 2015.

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Did you know that the costumes the Alliance soldiers wear in the Firefly episode The Train Job were originally used in Starship Troopers? That sort of recycling happens all the time in movies and TV. I’m a person of limited imagination, so when I first spotted Techland’s Dying Light, it appeared to me that they had swathes of zombie material lying around from Dead Island and decided to reshape it into a game about free-running past the undead. I still kind of stand by that. Whatever its inception, the fleet-footed zombie dodger is coming out pretty soon, and there’s a wee teaser trailer for you below. … [visit site to read more]