Dead Island 2 DLC Thoughts: HAUS & SoLA

A quick review of the two Dead Island 2 expansions.

Recently, I've been playing a lot of Dead Island 2. Now that I've finished the main campaign and collected the platinum trophy, I decided to take the plunge into the game's two story expansions, 'HAUS & SoLA. I tend to have mixed feelings about expansions, but seeing as I was having such a blast with Dead Island 2, plus I already had the season pass, I didn't really have a reason not to visit them. So, after spending some time playing through HAUS and SoLA, I've summarised my thoughts on the expansions below.

Expansion One: HAUS

The first expansion, HAUS, transports players to a surreal Malibu Villa where they'll encounter a cult of committed elitists who believe they hold the key to humanity's survival. Throughout the short playtime, players will encounter various trials in mysterious places as the greater plan unravels.

To be honest, HAUS didn't quite work for me. The areas felt a little too closed in and convoluted. The overarching narrative was fine, but it failed to pull my interest outside of working through new quests. HAUS also introduced a new weapon type, the crossbow, which was needed for completing puzzles and slaying zombies. My problem with the weapon was that once I'd finished the expansion, I felt no need to use the crossbow again, nor did it seem any more powerful than the weapons I'd already accumulated across my base game playthrough.

HAUS doesn't introduce any new enemy types either, although the zombies do get a fresh look to match the expansion, which is nice. As I mentioned earlier, the map feels uninviting and disorienting. While I get the more horror element it's going for, it just doesn't work. Instead of feeling eerie and creating a sense of uneasiness, it just creates a map that becomes a slog to get through, which isn't all that fun to explore, so I felt no urge to head back in and seek out any further mysteries it could hold. In short, HAUS has that one-and-done feel to it. And whilst that's fine, I mean, it did give me more content to toy with, it still felt a little underwhelming.

Expansion Two: SoLA

In the second expansion, SoLA, the slayers find themselves at a zombie-infested music festival. The storyline here follows them tracking down a musical 'beat', a sound that activates the autophage within people, hence the swarms of zombified festival-goers.

Thankfully, SoLA delivers a good time for players out there, thanks to an enjoyable yet spacious festival map that houses a good amount of variety and zones to traverse. SoLA also adds two new weapons to the game: the Ripper (a motorised bladed baseball bat) and the sawblade launcher. Both weapons are great additions to any slayer's arsenal, but the Ripper is by far a standout piece of kit.

Better yet, the expansion includes two new zombie types in the Whipper and the Clotter. The whipper is a stronger zombie type than normal and uses intestines as a whip to dish out fast attacks. These zombies can also let out a Fury-locking shriek, putting a temporary stop to fury usage. They're a great new enemy addition and add further variety to the combat. On the other hand, the Clotter is a lot more tedious to deal with. Clotters can dissolve into a puddle and reform somewhere else, as they can attack from range with blood-spraying attacks. Unfortunately, the main expansion boss, 'The Dirge', is based on this enemy type and frequently crops up throughout the storyline quests. Worse yet is the final boss fight against The Dirge, which is an overlong and frustrating slog that drags down the overall experience quite a bit.

Still, fun weapons, new enemy types and a rather enjoyable open area make for a good few hours of game time. Much like HAUS' storyline, SoLA was slightly better, but it's nothing more than bonus hours to keep questing and slaying zombies. It's a serviceable story that keeps the action moving and gives more quests to deal with.

Overall, it's a good addition to Dead Island 2 and was a good amount of fun to play through, so much so that I found myself heading back to SoLA to achieve 100% and duel with more Whippers

That's my take on the two-story expansions. Did you play the DLC? If so, how did you find it?