Dead Island - Reception

Reception

Dead Island received mostly positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PC version 77.80% and 80/100, the Xbox 360 version 73.02% and 71/100 and the PlayStation 3 version 72.16% and 71/100. IGN gave the game an 8.0/10, criticizing the game presentation, glitches, various bugs for the consoles, and texture loading, but praising the atmosphere and overall feel of the game and stating that the game's pro-points are significant enough to outweigh its cons. Official Xbox Magazine (UK) gave the game a score of 7.0/10, stating that while it falls short of its potential, there is more than enough to make up for the in-game issues, while the US version gave it 8.0/10. Computer and Video Games awarded the game a more negative score of 6.5/10, stating "This budget zombie thriller ain't too pretty but could manage to capture a cult following." However, Edge magazine gave Dead Island a 3/10 score referencing a very large number of gameplay and technical issues.

The PC version of the game also received many negative reviews from magazines and websites stemming from an accidental release of a development build of the game on Steam. This included features such as no-clipping and the ability to toggle third-person perspective. Rock Paper Shotgun also noted that the code revealed references to Xbox 360 version. Developer Deep Silver released a first-day patch seeking to address as many as 37 issues. A patch for the console versions has been released and fixed many issues, including corrupted savegames.