Well, here we are folks. Almost a whole year later after its initial launch, we’ve finally made it all the way to the end of the line (probably) as far as substantial Dead Island 2 DLC drops are concerned, with SoLA promising to deliver hot music festival vibes and gore aplenty. Unfortunately, aside from the aforementioned festival atmosphere and gallons of viscera present, what I was originally hoping would feel like one hell of a final hurrah turned out to be more akin to your average run-of-the-mill DLC experience with remarkably uneven high and low points.



The plot starts off interesting enough. Upon completing the mission from the main game titled “The Giant Slayer”, you’re able to fast travel to the SoLA festival grounds. Once there, a woman named Grace informs you (after multiple failed attempts at driving you away) of a series of mysterious glass speakers that have been set up around the area, all emitting an eerie frequency known simply as “The Beat”.



Any SoLA attendee within earshot of these ominous contraptions were near-instantly turned into the undead abominations now wandering the surrounding grassy fields and luxury tent facilities. I’m obviously not going to go into too much detail here regarding the following sequence of events conveyed through the handful of new missions on offer, or on how they may or may not relate to other plot threads, but you don’t need to be a genius to realise that those speakers have got to go. And you’re the perfect slayer to make it so.

From now on, the majority of your time in SoLA will be spent running from one section of the map to another, overloading the orbs within these confounded speakers...

And thus, the core gameplay loop is set in motion. From now on, the majority of your time in SoLA will be spent running from one section of the map to another, overloading the orbs within these confounded speakers by eliminating all nearby zombies lured in by the ever-pumping sick jams. A few brief detours along the way can net you some of the usual collectables you’ve come to expect - like newly added journals and skill cards, a personal favourite of mine granting the ability to sprint headfirst into oncoming enemies for a sizeable chunk of damage. There’s a bit more to the logic behind this tour of speaker destruction, as explained in the game, but I’ll spare you the details.



The first one or two speakers are fairly easy to deal with, but the encounter difficulty quickly begins to ramp up the further you get into the story, especially when the enemy variety starts to increase. As you might imagine, the situation can become quite chaotic, made even worse when you’re shoved into cramped areas where your mobility is severely hindered. And that’s not even taking into consideration the new enemy types that appear to have been scientifically engineered to ruin your day in the most efficient way possible.

Whippers, seemingly always clad in cowboy attire, use their own internal organs as a weapon (or whip). They’re able to inflict the Muzzled status ailment on your slayer, effectively disabling Fury Mode activation for a period of time. With an impressively relentless and long-ranged attack pattern, these annoyances were somehow the least of my worries. I also happen to quite like their design. The enemy type that really drove me up the wall, though, was the Clotter.



These masses of flesh can melt themselves down into a pool of gore and reassemble their bodies at an entirely different location, occasionally unleashing a high-pressure spray of blood or dishing out some serious damage through their frenzied melee attacks. In addition to the already decent variety of zombies in the game, having to deal with these two suckers at the same time when disabling the speakers is a surefire recipe for frustration. Thankfully, if you need to wind down and catch your breath, you can always find safety at Grace’s walled-off property near the centre of the map.

Not only is the map much larger, but the storyline also feels noticeably lengthier.

Compared to Dead Island 2’s prior story DLC, Haus, SoLA’s size and scope is significantly grander. Not only is the map much larger, but the storyline also feels noticeably lengthier. Also, it seemed to me like there were more instances of artificial difficulty spikes and objective padding as a direct result of the sheer quantity of enemies the game throws at you. But, hey, this is Dead Island 2 after all, and reducing hordes of shambling corpses to puddles of scarlet slurry is the name of the game.



Where the base game and Haus truly excelled, and where SoLA fails spectacularly, lies in its engagement and entertainment factor within the primary missions. In fact, looking back, I can recall only two moments throughout the entirety of SoLA’s campaign where I wasn’t actively itching to just meander off and do anything else - namely the objective that sees you beating a dozen or so zombies into the high-speed blades of a gigantic fan, and dealing with a speaker on the festival’s main stage with the added assistance of pyrotechnics.

Sure, the festival aesthetic is done well enough, and the combat will always be a gloriously violent affair, but the overall story experience is totally devoid of the genuinely disturbing and fascinatingly bizarre, claustrophobia-inducing elements of Haus and its demented denizens. The writing and humour likewise feel as if they’ve taken a major step in the wrong direction, with most attempts at comedy falling into the “try-hard” category.



If the writing felt like it tried too hard to get a reaction from the player, the complete opposite can be said for the central storytelling, where bland characters and repetitive tasks are in abundance. Simply put, it’s hard to actually care about what you’re doing this time around. The ending, without mentioning anything spoiler-y, left me feeling so utterly disappointed with the final outcome I immediately began asking myself why I even bothered dealing with that last large, drawn-out boss fight. On the bright side, at least I got a Sawblade Launcher for my trouble – one of the two new weapons added with the DLC. The other tool of destruction, a combination of a baseball bat and a circular saw known as the Ripper, is purchasable from Grace’s vending machine.

Miraculously, on the technical side of things, I barely experienced any problems. Aside from a line of dialogue that played about three times after leaving Grace’s HQ, and the inconsistent respawn locations after death, it was refreshingly smooth sailing. Not even a single crash to speak of.

If the writing felt like it tried too hard to get a reaction from the player, the complete opposite can be said for the central storytelling, where bland characters and repetitive tasks are in abundance.

As an extension to an already fun zombie-wrecking sandbox, SoLA shines at its brightest. As a cohesive, compelling narrative? Not even close. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, as I’ve always firmly believed these games prioritise fun above all else. But with the prospect of no further major content additions on the horizon, I was expecting a hell of a lot more than what we got here from a narrative perspective. There’s a healthy amount of side content to mess around with once you’re done with the campaign, thankfully, and plenty of exploration to be had for those hardcore fans and lore seekers out there - although I strongly suspect most won’t give SoLA any more time or attention than is absolutely necessary.



Honestly speaking, if you aren’t already an Expansion Pass owner or a massive Dead Island 2 lover (like myself), it’s rather difficult for me to recommend SoLA to you - especially at its current price of R289 (on the PlayStation Store, at least). It might sound harsh, but I barely gained any joy or satisfaction after completing the story, and I’m torn on whether there is enough worthwhile material here to justify a third trip to Hell-A. And I thoroughly savoured my time with both the base game and Haus expansion, for the record.

SoLA can still be a fun time, but the framework holding its various moments together feels considerably weaker than expected. If you truly must pick up one DLC for Dead Island 2 (despite the price point), and you value size over atmosphere, make it SoLA.

*Reviewed by Ryan Pretorius