| Gameplay |
Players explore a large island paradise full of zombies, completing questions, earning experience points, collecting loot, and exploring. PLayers can choose to play in a group or by themselves, and can travel to whatever part of the island they please. The game includes several RPG elements, including leveling and utilizing a skill tree. | 
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Players control one of four characters and must progress through the level, reaching safe house checkpoints along the way. They can gather weapons from around the area to help dispatch normal and special zombies. The last stage of each level is always a large scale battle that ensues with their safe getaway. Players can also take control of the Infected in online modes. |
| Location | Dead Island: Riptide takes place on the Banoi tropical island chain, with thick forests and jungles that populate the entire island. THere are various encampments and other structures that litter the island. The environment for the most part is limited to the micro-environments within this island setting. The game is entirely open world and available for exploration. | 
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Left 4 Dead 2 has a variety of campaign levels that players must progress through. Each level has several stages interrupted by safe rooms as save points. The environments include a variety of locations, including neighborhoods, carnivals, highways, and cornfields and farms. The levels are very linear and most levels only have one path of advancement. |
| Characters | The characters in Dead Island all have their own distinct personalities and play styles, all emphasizing different weapon types or skill sets. The original Dead Island includes four characters, Sam B the Blunt Weapons Expert, Xian Mei, the Bladed Weapons expert, Logan Carter, the Throwing Weapons expert, Purna, the Firearms expert, and Riptide added one more, John Morgan. |  |
Left 4 Dead 2 has a collection of four main characters that players can choose to play as, all with their own distinct personality. Coach, a large lumbering sports coach, Nick, a suave smart gambler, Ellis, a young country boy, and Roachelle, a hardened TV producer. The characters interact with each other through dialogue and gameplay, but all handle relatively the same. |
| Weapons | Dead Island: Riptide has a huge batch of weapons of players to amass, both in melee and ranged varieties. Guns are somewhat less useful and scarce as compared to their melee counterparts. Melee weapons include axes, sledgehammers, kantanas, knives, cudgels, frying pan, hat stands, and more. While weapons include pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, and snipers. Players can craft their own weapons. |  |
Left 4 Dead 2 also includes a combination of melee and ranged weapons. Both ranged weapons and melee weapons have about the same effectiveness. Melee weapons include fire axes, guitars, katanas, slegehammers, and others. WHile weapons are limited in simple and complex vararities of pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and snipers. Players are limited to the weapons that they find. |