The game centers around Jake Dunbar, the sole survivor of a plane crash, on a mysterious tropical island inhabited by zombies under the control of a mad scientist.

The plot follows the player character, Jake Dunbar, who is the only survivor of a plane crash on a tropical island filled with zombies that are being controlled by a mad scientist.

[7] The game's concept and design was created by A. Sean Glaspell; it was programmed by Bruce J. Mack and Bryan Kelsch and featured art by Myk Friedman.

Sandy Petersen, writing for Dragon in their "Eye of the Monitor" column, criticized its tedious difficulty and felt fighting the zombies was dull and too difficult.

[1] Peter Olafson, of Compute!, while negative towards the graphics, compared the mood of Isle of the Dead to EC Comics horror magazines.

[9] Multiple publications compared the game to other first-person shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D, while Sandy Petersen considered it was much less competently made.

[15] Adam Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun called Isle of the Dead one of the worst games he had ever played, saying that it doesn't get anything right thematically or gameplay-wise.

[16] PopHorror was more generous, declaring that "if you want a trip down memory lane to what jump started the horror genre in the 1990s, then download Isle of the Dead.