Third-person survival mystery ESCAPE Dead Island announced

Yes, that is intended to be in full caps: Deep Silver have revealed ESCAPE Dead Island, a single-player game set between Dead Island and Dead Island 2.

Players will take the role of Cliff Calo, a man trying to document the unexplained happenings on Banoi. After landing on one of the islands of the Banoi archipelago – Narapela – he starts experiencing strange deja vu, which he’ll have to deal with as he struggles to find out just what started the zombie outbreak.

It’s billed as a “third-person single-player survival mys1tery”, and I have absolutely no idea what that means. This time around things look a little more cartoony, with thick black lines around everything, but – despite the shift in visual style – ESCAPE Dead Island will apparently still be all about brutal melee combat with bizarre weapons. Oh, and that deja vu? Doesn’t seem like that’s just fluff. Apparently you’ll be battling insanity along with zombies, this time around.

ESCAPE Dead Island is being developed by Fatshark Sweden, who might be better known for Krater, War of the Roses, and War of the Horny Hairy Blood Men. Or War of the Vikings, if you prefer to call it that. We don’t. That pedigree proves that they’ve got the chops when it comes to decent melee combat, though it may also mean I’ll start referring to this as War of the Bloody Rotting Dead Men.

Three screenshots for the game can be found below, one of which contains a face that’ll be familiar to anyone who played the first Dead Island. ESCAPE Dead Island is due out rather sooner than you might expect, as it’s coming in autumn 2014.