However, his resistant and infected forms play off that base archetype in different ways. Each character has a resistant and infected form, and instead of turning into a zombie, the infected survivors manipulate the virus to give themselves unique powers and mutations.įor instance, Sledge (likely a temporary name) is a big, slow tank. Each player has four weapon slots (toggled with the 1-4 buttons) and four different abilities (Q, E, R, F).

Resources can also be collected from dead players and zombies to be manually delivered to your base or an occupied flag.įamiliar Dead Island zombie types and weapons make appearances, and a crafting system is under development right now. Instead of minions, Epidemic uses zombies to harass the three teams of surivivors.The goal structure is also significantly different, as players fight for capture points that award resources (victory points) on a timed schedule. This gives Epidemic a feel closer to a twin-stick shooter than an RTS. The first thing I noticed when settling into a PC to play through a match is that, unlike traditional MOBAs (Dead Island: Epidemic is technically a 'Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena' or 'ZOMBA'), the WASD keys are used for movement.

Dead Island: Epidemic is still very early in development, but developer Stunlock Studios (Bloodline Arena) is offering fresh changes to a formula that is quickly growing stale. Deep Silver is mutating its open-world zombie series with a new twist on multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs).

Dead island epidemic