Dead Island DLC out within weeks

By Tom Phillips Published 9 September, 2011

Bloodbath Arena adds survival mode.

New content for decomposing role-player Dead Island will arrive later this month, Deep Silver has announced.

The Bloodbath Arena pack adds four new maps where players will face endless waves of undead.

Orders of the game from online retailer ShopTo were shipped with a redemption code for the content, usable when the DLC becomes available for all.

A laundry list of issues have plagued Dead Island, including an incorrect version of the game launching on Steam and warnings that updating the game may wipe PC saves.

Dead Island developer Techland apologised after a line of game code was discovered referencing a skill named "Feminist Whore".

Dead Island launches today with an extensive day-one patch to fix multiple issues.

Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead unearthed a mouldy 6/10 score for the game in our Dead Island review.

Dead Island.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 8 months ago

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  • Eraysor #1 9 months ago

    The PC version is working fine for me, and the game is actually much better than the 6/10 EG gave it, in my opinion.

  • Colin8703 #2 9 months ago

    I'd like to see a re-review now it's patched.

  • chrisjm #3 9 months ago

    amazon codes being sent out 30th sept, presumably this is the release day for the DLC

  • -cerberus- #4 9 months ago

    Already?! Glad I didn't buy the bloody thing.

  • mrlaurentisdead #5 9 months ago

    'Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead unearthed a mouldy 6/10 score' implies that 6/10 is a bad score, but the classic argument had all the time on this site is that 6/10 is only a bad score on 'those other' sites, and that Eurogamer 'uses the entire scale' so 6/10 is a decent-enough score, above average so better than the curve.

    Seems not all the staff agree. I wonder if Eurogamer would improve if scores were just taken out entirely.

    On Topic: Does anyone know if the Arena can be used to level up characters, or will it take a note out of the Borderlands 'no exp in the arena' DLC? If the former, might be useful to get past those painful difficulty spikes that a few reviewers have noted.

    Edit: @Cerberus: it's packaged in to new orders, so if you did buy the game, you wouldn't have to pay extra for it.
    Edited by mrlaurentisdead at 09/09/11 @ 10:52

  • ZizouFC #6 9 months ago

    I don't think it deserves a re-review because it's their own fault for releasing a faulty game, even if it probably would get a higher score if reassessed by EG.

  • Murton #7 9 months ago

    Hmmmm, think I'll have a word with the peeps in GameStation to see if this is a code in every box deal. If not I'll wait for the DLC and then buy it.

    This game was firmly on the list until the review, then I faltered and decided to wait but put it back on after seeing the sustained attack from journos this week. I firmly believe that Dan may have been overly harsh in the review. After all none of the issues listed sound anywhere near as bad as say, Fallout 3 which was given all 8s and above and several GOTY awards despite being hideously broken.

  • aphex187 #8 9 months ago

    Isn't it about time these one person reviews were chucked out in favour of 4 people giving their damning reviews, be it film, music to games?

  • chrisjm #9 9 months ago

    aphex187 thats what sites like gamerankings are fore, Dead island gets 73.68% based on 20ish reviews (online and print)

  • aphex187 #10 9 months ago

    chrisjm

    I'm just saying in general m8, hell i've seen some right stinkers when it comes to movies because one guy has given it 5 out 5 and classed it as film of the month. Hey but thx for the heads up on that site m8 ;)

  • JUICE_1978 #11 9 months ago

    @zizouFC - I see where your coming from but i can also understand from the point of view from the developer/publisher timing is very important for release dates as you can imagine GOW amongst other titles are coming out in the next few weeks if they were to leave it any longer they'd be hit on a large number of initial sales, also the release date isnt until today and they've released a DAY 1 patch to clear up any of these issues. i can only appreciate it takes time to get these games cut and into the shops/stores online and they have to make this decision early so i'd say in closing this cut them some slack and give them some credit for what appears to be a great game (i've had it since wednesday and im glad to have already forked out for it :)
    Edited by JUICE_1978 at 09/09/11 @ 11:29

  • SteveHolt #12 9 months ago

    It's like Borderlands' Mad Moxxi underdome, or your typical horde mode, then? Meh.

  • Rad77UK #13 9 months ago

    @JUICE_1978 - couldn't agree more......been playing the 360 ver since Weds also & even with a few bugs it's far better than a 6/10.....with the increasing amount of co/op gameplay reviewers need to almost take into account the SP / Co/op experience almost as a seperate review........however I will say the co/op join game option is cr4p!!!

  • uknortherner2000 #14 9 months ago

    Not interested in DLC full stop, but from what I've seen of various playthrough vids up on YouTube including the Yogscast PC playthrough, the game itself looks a lot more fun than the Eurogamer review suggested, especially in co-op. So much so, that I've taken the plunge and purchased it on Steam.

  • Bravestinsane #15 9 months ago

    @Eraysor

    Totally agree, im not that person who is just defending my purchase, i bought it last minute pre-order on steam last night, after all the reviews, after knowing all the bugs, after knowing that everything is supposed to be broke.

    Now ill admit i have only played it for a couple of hours, still in the first act at the very beginning.

    But im loving it, i get so side tracked on the quests just running off and exploring the map, its big and beautiful. So far unlike the reviews all suggest i have found 0 bugs.

  • Bravestinsane #16 9 months ago

    @ZizouFC

    Good argument, but could you not also say it deserves a re-review because they released the game with those bugs removed?

    After all the release date was Today, and the patch to fix everything was yesterday (on steam anyway) so technically speaking Europe was released with the fixed version of the game, and Eurogamer reviewed the pre-release version

    I mean, my game unlocked today and i have experienced no bugs, so is it not true that i didn't play the same version as eurogamer, even though i got it on release?

  • Stratix #17 9 months ago

    I'm thinking, screw the review, I'm going to get it and I'm sure it'll enjoy it.

  • danidrums #18 9 months ago

    I don't care how much EG scored this piece of $hit. After 2 hours into the game I fed up.
    edit: neg, yeah it's really that bad.
    Edited by danidrums at 10/09/11 @ 03:57

  • actionfitz #19 9 months ago

    the review sort of cemented my decision not to buy, but reports from my friends who did... they are loving it :S
    hopefully lovefilm send it to me next.

  • Liquidoodle #20 9 months ago

    Having pre ordered this and played it today for over 9 hours straight with two mates I can safely say it's fucking brilliant!

    Some of the best co-operative game play I've ever had!

    This is why I never read reviews :D

  • vmanb #21 9 months ago

    brilliant game and i wouldn't be surprised if its No1 in the charts this week either
    Edited by vmanb at 11/09/11 @ 18:28

  • SomaticSense #22 8 months ago

    Bravestinsane - "I mean, my game unlocked today and i have experienced no bugs, so is it not true that i didn't play the same version as eurogamer, even though i got it on release? "

    Ah, the old "I have no bugs so you must all be lying" argument. If only it was that simple.

    I know someone irl who has been crippled by the PS3 save bug. I also know someone else irl who has put in hours and hours and had no glitches or bugs whatsoever. Both are telling the truth, it's just one has been unlucky and the other one hasn't. Game coding is like that you see, it's a massively complex thing there are so many variables and permutations that can be changed by even the slightest difference in what one person does compared to another.

    But then you didn't have any problems, so you must clearly obviously have a different version....
    Edited by SomaticSense at 13/09/11 @ 13:23