[6] Released for Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game is centered on the challenge of surviving a zombie-infested open world with an important emphasis on melee combat.

While praised for its atmosphere, gameplay and playable characters, it was also criticized for large technical difficulties and in-game glitches, graphics and most notably being hampered for lacking the emotional themes presented in the trailer.

Dead Island features an open world, divided by relatively large areas, and played from a first-person perspective.

Weapons are randomly generated and positioned in predetermined locations as well as found on some enemies; they have unique stats that are generally based on the player's current level.

The night after a party, four playable main characters (hereafter referred to as "the survivors"): rapper Sam B., hotel receptionist and spy for the Hong Kong Government Xian Mei, former American football-star Logan Carter, and ex-police officer Purna Jackson—are awakened by a voice over the emergency intercom system directing them to evacuate the hotel.

They discover that the majority of the population have been overcome by a contagious and infectious plague, turning them into psychopathic, flesh-eating creatures.

As it becomes obvious that the resort lacks enough supplies to survive for long, Sinamoi instead has them travel to the city of Moresby to find help.

Upon arriving in Moresby, after taking down a new special infected known as the Ram, the survivors aid a holdout at a barricaded church.

After the survivors complete the preparations that he and Jin requested, they hurry back to the lab when White reports that somethings' gone wrong.

Awoken by a tech-savvy prisoner named Kevin, they learn that White stole the vaccine and intends to flee with his wife and call in a nuclear strike to purge the island.

Upon the zombie outbreak, White oversees the bombing of bridges to slow the infection, but his helicopter crashes in Moresby when the co-pilot turns.

Disregarding his wife's pleas to leave her, White has himself dropped off at the prison, intent on saving her before ordering a nuclear strike to purge the island.

However, with no other options, he follows Charon's instructions to restore emergency power and find antibiotics for Emily, fighting off armed escaped prisoners.

After administering the antibiotic to Emily, Charon notifies him that a group of prisoners are approaching in reprisal for the ones that White killed to obtain the Tetracycline.

Charon then instructs White to store knockout gas above the elevator lift that the group will be using, so they can steal the antidote from them and avoid having to negotiate.

Before leaving to retrieve the gas, White destroys the control room's computer to prevent Charon from pulling any more tricks.

Afraid of being too late, White collects the antidote from the group and frantically fights through countless waves of Zombies to get back to Emily.

A promotional film, created by UK animation studio Axis Productions and directed by Stuart Aitken,[12] featuring the transformation of a young girl into a zombie, played in a nonlinear sequence,[13] was commented upon by Ben Parfitt of MCV.

However Wired urged caution, stating that Techland did not make the trailer and that "everyone is hyped up about a short film, not the game itself.

"[16] Dead Island was originally announced on 8 August 2007[17][18] and stated to be released in 2008, developed by Techland and produced by Adrian Ciszewski, but was delayed.

[19] An official teaser trailer, titled "Part 1: Tragedy Hits Paradise", was released on 17 May 2011 featuring various gameplay aspects.

The game's zombies were rendered to have fully modelled layers of meat and muscle, meaning they have a multi-layered damage system with real-time injuries.

[25] Deep Silver funded a four-part series of comedic short films written and starring hosts of Talkradar from the video game journalistic website GamesRadar, titled Dead Island: Secret Origins.

On 21 March 2011, gaming licenser ESRB announced that the original version of the Dead Island logo was not suitable for release in North America, and Deep Silver was told to change it.

After gaining access to his office, Roger finds detailed files on Xian Mei, Purna, Logan Carter, and Sam B.

On 27 September 2011, Lionsgate announced that they had acquired the rights to develop a film based on the game's release trailer, as its portrayal of a family desperately fighting for their lives provided artistic inspiration.

"[40] However, Edge magazine gave Dead Island a 3/10 score referencing a very large number of gameplay and technical issues.

[48] This software was replaced on Steam and other distribution sites in 2016 by the Definitive Edition, which uses a different game engine (though is unlikely to be bug-free itself).

"Gender Wars", an unlockable skill for the playable character Purna which increases her combat damage against male opponents, was referred to during development as "Feminist Whore".

Publisher Deep Silver described the line in question as a "private joke" made by one of the developers, and regretted its appearance in the final product.