While it may not have been a perfect experience, Dead Island was a game that impressed me. Six years of development by Techland yielded a surprisingly fun RPG experience akin to Borderlands in its main mechanics. While some aspects–from the unbalanced weapon acquisition to the paper-thin storyline–prevented Dead Island from achieving high marks overall, the good outweighed the bad if you ask me, making the zombie-RPG a worthwhile play through with some friends on a Friday night.

What is interesting to me is the promotion of Dead Island’s latest downloadable content, titled Dead Island: Ryder White. Boasting a more in-depth storyline and a brand new playable character, the DLC is a short, linear romp following the exploits of the game’s human antagonist, Col. Ryder White. While Ryder White actually redresses one of the principal issues with the main game, in the end it becomes nothing but a stark contrast to what Dead Island was: something that was good in some respects, but disappointing in many others.

Ryder White stars the titular character as he is assigned to pretty much cleanse the island of Banoi of the zombie scourge. Unfortunately for White, his wife Emily is trapped in the prison located off the coast of Banoi. After finishing his primary mission early on, he learns that his wife has been infected by the virus. Deciding to risk his life and career to save her, White heads to the maximum security prison his wife worked at to deal with the undead and escaped convicts on his own.

As I said above, Ryder White redresses one of the problems found in Dead Island: the storyline. While it is somewhat basic in the end compared to other RPGs out there, Ryder White actually does a great job in adding character to the desperate Colonel, something that was noticeably absent with the principal heroes available in the main game. His desire to save his wife pretty much drives him to do things he normally wouldn’t do, and in many ways gives White some pathos that we couldn’t see before.

But adding to the experience is the overall plot of Ryder White. Those who played through Dead Island and remember parts of the storyline will know the moment I refer to; the moment where everything turns on a dime and changes how we can perceive the plot of the original game. It is one of those moments that would make you question the motivations of the in-game characters and the player, similar to the “Would you kindly?” motivation in Bioshock. Even though appreciating this masterfully crafted twist truly depends on your investment in the main storyline a bit, it is such a great moment I would almost recommend playing the DLC just to see it. Almost, at least.

Get used to gunning down prisoners…both alive and undead.

The problem in the end comes down to what Ryder White detracts, rather than adds. The gameplay is still fundamentally the same, as using a variety of melee weapons and guns to combat constant droves of undead has remained relatively intact. But what we do lose in the end is the exploration of the world and many of the mechanics found in the main game. For example, your level is fixed at 15, meaning you cannot level up or customize a skill tree in Ryder White. The game pretty much gives you a pre-created character with all the basic tools you need, instead of a character you can shape over time.

The level progression is also a restricted experience, with only small amounts of deviation from the main path that lead to nothing but a few special weapons or mods. Most of your time in Ryder White will be ogling dreary green corridors and desolate streets, pretty much wasting any advancing zombies and crazy gunmen you come across. Ryder White is more akin to a few levels of Call of Duty, with your current objectives the only reason to press forward and backtrack through the established pathways and endless corridors.

To its credit though, Ryder White does try to mix things up a bit every once and a while, throwing in horde mode moments that have you holding in a defensive position for about five minutes, blasting away the endless horde with shotguns and propane tanks constantly. The game also decides to spike the difficulty artificially as well, having you ward off several special infected at times. The DLC is challenging, but not impossible, which is good because it is a single-player only experience. Multiplayer is yet another sadly lacking feature, considering it’s a multi-player RPG at its core.

The experience is still rather short, clocking in at three hours to get through the three locations and completing White’s story. Other issues keep cropping up at times as well; the graphics have remained untouched and still have some awkward face-movements when characters speak, as well as frame rate issues when levels load. The voice acting is once again decent and the soundtrack crescendos only in combat, but does a good job at setting the mood when it hits.

It is actually a quandary for me in recommending Ryder White as DLC. At $9.99, the content is short and cuts away most of what made Dead Island unique, leaving in its wake a shell of the basic gameplay to actually play. It is not a terrible DLC by any means, but it also doesn’t do much to entice new players or bring the established fanbase back to the game. Dead Island: Ryder White is probably best at being a diversion for said fanbase; the storyline they wanted to see from the main game shines here and adds new dimensions to the games lore, but the strength of the story is not enough for players to go back to Banoi once more.

The DLC was purchased for 800 Microsoft points ($9.99) by the reviewer and was played to completion in a little over 3 hours.

Dead Island Review

By Taylor H.

It's the open-world zombie game you've always wanted. Only with a lot of bugs.