“Gear up, strategize and defend the neighborhood. Go Bobcats!”
— Description of this mode
Neighborhood Watch - is a free mode for Dead Island 2, developed by Fishlabs and Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver. It is part of the third major expansion for Dead Island 2, the mode was released on October 22, 2024, along with the Ultimate Edition and New Game+. In this mode, we are not playing as the slayers, but as a group of students from VCLA Bobcats whose task it is to prepare for a horde of zombies which approaches in 5 days.
Description[]
Neighborhood Watch takes place in the Venice Canals area, where the VCLA Bobcats enjoy student housing in The Shelter, which they must protect against an impending zombie horde. Neighborhood Watch is played in sessions of 5 days. At the start of the session you must choose a VCLA Bobcat character and class to play, Chemist Dez, Hunter Bozzy, or Medic Rav, customize their Talents, after which you head out to complete missions. A session can be played with up to 3 players. The chosen Talents decide your class ability, signature attack and class utility. The class ability functions similar to Curveballs from the campaign, signature attacks function similar to Fury Mode and class utilities are passive buffs that are always applied. The Bobcats also have access to deploy-able traps.
During the first 4 days you vote with your team on which mission to undertake each day. The area in which each mission takes place is also mentioned, being either Venice Canals or Speedway. Every mission has unique rewards usefull for defending The Shelter. Completion of a mission also grants Rank which is Neighborhood Watch's equivalent to Experience Points. Higher Rank gives access to different Talents and session modifiers. It is advised to stay together during a mission, as failing to do so will trigger the Stalker to spawn. The Stalker is a souped up Butcher which hunts down the separated Bobcat. The Stalker does not spawn during solo play.
On day 5 it is time to defend The Shelter in the Defend the Shelter mission. 5 waves of zombies will spawn around The Shelter, north, south and west of it. On each of these sides is also a door that must be protected. The mission fails if a door is broken or if all Bobcats die. Zombie waves may attack multiple doors at once, making this mission especially unforgiving for solo players.
List of missions[]
There are 29 missions in total. Every day a choice is given between 3 missions. There are 27 normal missions, the Defend the Shelter mission and the hidden Vertical Slice mission. The Defend the Shelter and Vertical Slice mission both have a difficulty of 5. For the normal missions below, the number behind each mission indicates their difficulty rating. To access the hidden Vertical Slice mission the following steps must be completed:
- After day 1, pick up the unusual coin in the basement of The Shelter and insert it into the arcade cabinet. This enables the Bobcat trophies to spawn.
- On day 2 collect all Bobcat trophies on the map. There are 3 possible spawn-points for trophies.
- In Venice Canals the possible spawn-points are: inside the green garage immediately north of the spawn, in the garden of the burned out house is some tires, north-east of the map and behind a barricade south-east of the map at the end of the street.
- In Speedway the possible spawn-points are: atop of a staircase immediately south of the spawn, behind some bushes and trees in the garden of the house west of the sewer entrance and on some boxes in the River Delivery area, west of the map.
- After day 2, put all collected Bobcat trophies inside the bookcase in the living-room.
- For day 3, select a mission in the map you have not yet collected trophies on, and collect all remaining trophies.
- After day 3, put all collected Bobcat trophies inside the bookcase in the living-room.
The hidden mission is now available for day 4.
Normal missions[]
- Thar She Blows: 1
- No Signal: 2
- Not Another Influenza: 1
- My First Gun: 3
- Grocery Run: 3
- License To Grill: 2
- Stone-Cold Killer: 2
- The Magic Of Friendship: 4
- They Were Soldiers: 3
- Unsanitary Plea: 3
- Crowd Control Control: 4
- Take Your Pills: 4
- Old Man Yells At Cars: 1
- No Need To Scream: 3
- Horde Surveillance: 2
- Birthday Bash: 1
- Generation Gap: 2
- Cowering Inferno: 1
- Bored Of The Flies: 2
- I Need Healing!: 3
- Low On Batteries: 5
- This Is Fine: 4
- Do You Even Lift: 4
- Four Corpses Of The Apocalypse: 5
- Volt Into Action: 1
- Pizza Party: 2
- Connection Lost: 3