It seems that the developer build of Dead Island was released on Steam instead of the final version of the game. Oops!
The buggy, unfinished first-person action RPG game was released in a no-clip mode mapped to “Y” as default in the final code.
Here are a some of the technical issues players are experiencing:
• Character movement is imprecise
• Lag when driving a vehicle
• Character moves at half-speed when player attempts to strafe
• If the player accidentally hits the “Y” button and goes into no-clopping mode, the character may fly into a solid object and get stuck.
• When game is restarted, experience, abilities, items, and cash are erased
A list of fixes has been released, and a one-day patch is all it will supposedly take to fix this version of Dead Island. Here is the list of what will be corrected:
• Fixed map synchronization when player joins during map load.
• Fixed saving player re-spawn position when playing in co-op mode.
• Fixed occasional inability to complete sidequests in Laboratory.
• Improved enemy awareness (zombies).
• Fixed occasional bug with NPC’s hands bend (IK)
• Fixed spawning enemies in some quests after joining co-op game.
• Fixed showing locations on invisible NPCs.
• Fixed potential path blocker when quest “Knockin’ on heaven’s door” was completed before talking to Dominik during the “On the air” quest.
• Fixed displaying gather rings near some doors.
• Fixed enemy reaction to fire.
• Fixed enemies’ health and stamina bars in co-op.
• Fixed filtering of games in lobby.
• Volume of pickup’s engine has been increased.
• Fixed a number of issues causing game instability.
• Fixed the switching of maps upon player death.
• Fixed enemies unable to reach the player on some arenas.
• Thrown items cannot be picked up by co-op players for five minutes.
• Items from freshly opened containers cannot be picked up by other players for five seconds to prevent theft.
• Fixed animation glitch when trading with team members.
• More than one player can use a ladder at the same time.
• Fixed stomping execution animation when target’s attacked by a second player.
• Fixed the infinite respawning of shooting enemies.
• Fixed not hiding menu if players die inside a vehicle.
• Fixed item level calculation when playing New Game Plus.
• Added information about players requesting pause in co-op.
• Fixed A.I. animation glitch after fast-traveling or using a map portal.
• Added distinction between quest checkpoints and other types of saves.
• Fixed bug causing all inventory to disappear.
• Fixed reloading and kicking. After the clip goes in, the reload is a success.
• Purna can gain bonus rage from both “Grim Inspiration” and “Inspiring Kick”.
• Only “Walker” type enemies increase the extra XP of the “Combo” skill from Xian’s Survival skill tree.
• Health regeneration is disabled during grabs.
• Focus on items in shops not changing after selling or buying.
• More HP for NPCs in escort missions.
• Butcher enemies won’t spawn at all during escort missions (hooray!)
• Fixed tracking after loading checkpoint.
• Increased minimum vertical distance to count a waypoint as passed for NPCs (they no longer wander back-and-forth).
Techland and Deep Silver knew that this version of the game had issues, but they still chose to launch it instead of pushing the release date a few days later. At least it’ll be fixed soon!
Dead Island is rated M for mature (17+) and is currently available for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.