Dead Island 2 Censorship Confirmed for One Region

Dead Island 2 looks to be quite the gory game based on what was seen in the most recent gameplay preview from Deep Silver, but it appears that gore has its limits in at least one region. The German version of the game overseen by the USK – the organization responsible for game ratings in Germany – will apparently not allow players to interact with zombies further after they’ve slain the creatures, though it seems that all other forms of violence found in other regional versions of the game will remain intact.

The USK 18 rating in Germany was apparently achieved after concessions were made so that postmortem dismemberment wouldn’t be possible. Sure enough, a German press release (translated by DeepL) confirms one change will be present compared to what’s seen in the international version of the game. It says that “there is only one difference between the international and USK versions: once the zombies are defeated, players in the USK version will no longer be able to interact” with the creatures.

The press release continued to hype up Dead Island 2’s other violent features by saying that players can still cut and beat up zombies with sharp or blunt weapons or can set them on fire with Molotov cocktails and such. The censorship was framed in a way to suggest that players should move onto another zombie instead of continuing to tear up the one that’s already been slain.

“For players of the USK version, the following applies: Once the zombies are chopped up, crushed to a pulp or flambéed, they can’t do any more damage to them – and why should they? After all, there are enough roaming zombies just waiting to be dismembered,” the press release continued.

In other games like The Callisto Protocol, Dead Space, and several of Bethesda’s RPGs, players can sometimes continue to attack enemies even after killing them. This is practical in some games like the two horror titles mentioned previously since stomping enemies in The Callisto Protocol and Dead Space ensures they’re really dead and also grants players resources, but in other games, it’s just a matter of allowing players to do so if they want to.

Dead Island 2 is scheduled to release on April 28th.