Tips and Tricks: 10 Tips to Help You in Hell-A

Survive the zombie apocalypse in Dead Island 2! Discover 10 essential tips and tricks covering combat, exploration, and resource management to help you conquer Hell-A.

Here is a list of tips and tricks for Dead Island 2 that we recommend picking up. We’ll explain most of them in more detail further down the page if there’s some nuance or quirks to the tip.

1. Weapons for different playstyles

There are many weapons, but each typically fits into one of four playstyles:

• Headhunter - Critical Hits to the head - These are your spear or precision-themed weapons.
• Frenzy - Weapons that do critical hits after landing several hits quickly. These are your fast-swinging weapons like Short Swords, Golf Clubs, etc.
• Maiming - Have a higher chance to maim zombies - These are your Axes and other decapitating weapons.
• Bulldozer - Great weapons used for taking on larger groups of Zombies - Think mace weapons, clubs, bats, and so on.

Ranged weapons also have their own weapon type:

• Demolition - Grants critical hits to vulnerable zombies. This goes on your weapons like Shotguns.

2. Practice timing your dodges and blocks for special moves

If you learn to time your dodges perfectly, you can get special moves to hit enemies with. This will deal large burst damage to zombies, and even have a chance to kill some zombies by doing so. This saves a lot of durability on your weapon and makes the gameplay more rewarding.

3. Look for hazards to deal with zombies effectively

You’ll find oil spills that you can ignite to burn zombies and apply the burn status effect to enemies for even more damage. You can also use water to electrify zombies, stunning them, and making them take shock damage. Perhaps you find acid spills, which you can force enemies to walk through to deal some incredibly strong damage. You can also create your own hazard by destroying wires, or throwing jerrycans about the place. You may also use your weapon elemental mods to trigger these traps too.

4. The game is linear, and you can use more of each map as you progress through the main story.

For the most part, you’re better staying on track to the main story, and doing side quests the game naturally leads you to. Venturing off and doing your own thing on a map typically leads you to skull level zombies, which will likely one-shot you, until you catch up to where the devs want you to be. Eventually, you’ll be able to fast travel to other maps in DI2, so, you can start exploring much better in the second half of the game.

5. Buy fuses from vendors if you want to loot some higher-yield crafting areas and get better weapons.

Certain “?” icons on the map are Fuse Boxes. These require a fuse to open them. You’ll often find that you can get a decent weapon inside, scaled with your level, and some other crafting materials, and more often than not, higher-tier crafting materials.

6. Side quests and getting keys to buildings typically award better blueprints

This tip is implied by the previous tip about fuses and the general progression of the game, where completing optional objectives often yields better rewards.

7. Check the unclaimed Property in the Storage Lockers if you drop or throw your weapons

One of Amy’s innate skills grants her stamina back if you land a thrown weapon attack. Throwing weapons can sometimes lead you to lose them. Storage Lockers has a tab where you can retrieve your weapons from it, so you can get them back if you messed up your throw.

8. Learn to dodge attacks on the opposite side of where a zombie swings

This makes avoiding attacks easier thanks to animations and hitbox registry.

9. Move your cursor when swinging weapons to make your attacks land faster.

You want to nudge your weapon’s attack animation into the zombies. So, if your weapon’s swing starts on the right, and go left, you want to move your aiming reticle slightly to the left to help that hitbox connect with enemies quicker.

10. Remember to sell excess parts and bad weapons when you arrive back to a trader.

This helps manage your inventory better and grants more money. In the early game, you’ll very much cap out on Metal Parts very early on, esp if you scrap broken white weapons. This will allow you to sell those parts on, knowing you find more and make more in the following maps and missions. It’s nice amount of income to really steam roll your exploration and combat antics.