Slaying zombies in Dead Island 2 is fun but what’s even more fun is doing it with friends. Nothing more satisfying than seeing a poor helpless zombie ping-ponging between you and your buddies as you take turns hitting it. We are here to explain co-op works and how you can play with friends in Dead Island 2.
Dead Island 2 co-op explained
Unlike the original Dead Island games, Dead Island 2, unfortunately, dials back the player count a bit. Instead of 4 players, you can only play co-op with up to 3 people now. This was mainly done to balance things in terms of difficulty and not make stuff too chaotic on the screen which is usually the case with 4 player co-op.
You and your friends can all pick different characters or Slayers as they are called in-game so everyone has a different personality in the game but also different abilities, strengths and weaknesses to make a well-rounded team of zombie killers.
How to play Dead Island 2 co-op
Co-op or the ability to play with friends and strangers on the internet is unlocked fairly early on in Dead Island 2. After completing the intro portion of the game, once you reach Emma Jaunt’s house in Bel-Air and go through the cutscenes there, you will eventually leave for Halperin Hotel. This is when you will unlock the option to play co-op in DI2.
As mentioned before, only 3 people can play together in Dead Island 2. The host needs to simply navigate to the Main Menu, Continue a game and then select what type of Session they are interested in hosting. There are four options; Singleplayer, Public, Invite Only and Friends Only.
Once the session has been made, the Host can either send an invite to a Friend to play with or the Friend can simply navigate to the Join game option on their menu and see all accessible sessions there. Simple as that. There are no dedicated servers for Dead Island 2 and the connection is Peer-2-Peer so the host needs to have a good connection with other players.
Do keep in mind that Dead Island 2 does not support cross-platform co-op but it does have cross-gen support. PS5 players can play with PS4 and Xbox Series X|S players can play with Xbox One players. Another caveat is that only players with PS5, PS4 Pro, Xbox One X and Xbox Series X|S can host sessions. For now, players with base Xbox One and PS4 models can only join a session created by someone else.
