Dead Island 2is finally out, and I mean it. No, seriously - check the storefronts. Nearly ten years in the making, and after swapping hands several times, it has arrived, and it’s in surprisingly good shape given that tumultuous history. So, understandably, fans are ecstatic to get stuck in and find out all they can about its world, and one eagle-eyed player has already spotted nods to two other games -TimeSplittersand Homefront: The Revolution.
As shared by the TimeSplitters News & Archives Twitter account, there’s an arcade within Dead Island 2 that has machines for H:TR and TS, though neither are playable - you are in the midst of a zombie outbreak, after all.
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It’s a sweet nod, given how all three games share a history. TimeSplitters was developed by Free Radical Games, which was acquired byCrysisdeveloper Crytek in 2009. Following this acquisition, the studio was rebranded to Crytek UK, though it eventually closed in 2014 with the majority of staff transferring to the newly formed Dambuster Studios.
If you want to find this easter egg for yourself, there’s a YouTube video by Phoenixdeath666 in the Twitter thread which shows the room in more detail, revealing in the description that you can find both references at “the bottom floor of the goat pen”.
The GOAT Pen is a mansion found in Bel Air that is chock full of locked doors. Naturally, there are side quests that task you with hunting down Master Keys to access these gated rooms. Eventually, reaching the basement, you’ll be able to find both arcade machines in pristine, not-working order.
Homefront: The Revolution had a similarly turbulent development to Dead Island 2. The first was released by the now-defunct Kaos Studios, so its successor was handed to Crytek UK despite THQ claiming it would be handled by its own Montreal studio. THQ filed for bankruptcy in December 2012, leaving what would happen to H:TR up in the air. That is, until 2013, when THQ sold the rights to Crytek for $500,000, leading to its release in 2016 under Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver.
It launched to poor reviews, landing a 48 critic score on Metacritic, so it didn’t come out of a convoluted passing-of-the-torch unscathed, but Dead Island 2 is fairing better.We at TheGamer scored it 3.5 stars, while on average, it has a critic score of 74. The wait is finally over and it looks like it was worth it, so now we can move on to waiting forthe next TimeSplitter. And the next Homefront. Hell, let’s throw Dead Island 3 in there while we’re at it.
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