Dead Island: Epidemic: The Servers Officially Shut Down

     Not mowing the lawns...

     It's always sad to see a good game get shut down, and the free-to-play Dead Island: Epidemic was a great game.  On September 15th Team Dead Island: Epidemic announced they would shut down a month later, and now- the game servers have just officially just shut down.

     Team DI:E had taken the franchise and gave it a hell of a makeover and a ton of new and wonderful characters.  Every corner of the game was full of small details that filled the world and gave it depth.  Those little things added so much to the game's style it would be hard to deny its brilliance.  Even the loading screens had something to entertain, all my yellow-colored headers in this post are statements that popped up between matches.  They include nods to other zombie IPs, strange explanations, and even things the developers were doing to prepare the game.
     They went above and beyond in creating something you could tell they loved.  I mean look at the interesting way they used text in the pictures below (numbers 3 and 4).  They moved in perspective as you shifted position around them, like small hovering walls.  DI:E was a work made by a team that wanted to make something they really cared about, and it definitely showed.

     Loading a lot...

     Developer Deep Silver has been having a tough time recently with the Dead Island franchise, and the only good thing in the last couple years was this MOBA.  After the fallout with Yager being eliminated from Dead Island 2's development after monstrous delays (although Techland has offered to take up the reigns again) and the fumbled mess that was Escape Dead Island- which could've been handled so much better. I had hoped some good news would come out for the series I enjoyed so much. Escape Dead Island had so much potential going for it and they really dropped the ball big-time on the chance to expand on a tremendously fun zombie series.

     Turning Daryl...

     What makes this so awful is that the game was an absolutely amazing MOBA.  Epidemic had beautiful graphics, amazing sound and music design, and most importantly, it had damn fun gameplay.  I started playing it myself in December 2014, and over the course of playing there were numerous improvements and graphics overhauls- as you can see from the pictures (the newest on top, to the oldest at the bottom of the page)- and they always made things better with each new addition.  And there were constant additions to the game, be it new characters, weapons, or whatever.  There was plenty of content to keep players busy.

     Reading Zombie Survival Guides...

     Deep Silver put a lot of effort into this game and the team directly responsible made something special.  I can only hope that they use what they've made to create a Diablo-esque story mode game we can purchase and play to support them.  In my opinion, an iOS and Android mobile version of a single player campaign could be created with Epidemic as its foundation and potentially marketed quite well if they really wanted to.  Maybe Deep Silver can put the game to use in the ever-expanding mobile games area.

     So in saying goodbye to Dead Island: Epidemic, I leave you with my favorite small bit of humor in the background of one of the levels that always made me laugh...

 ...a zombie that died photocopying its ass on a xerox machine.

     The Epidemic has ended.