Escape Dead Island is like a stealthy, tropical Dead Space

The skies have turned blood red...

Before you say anything, yes--there are currently three Dead Island games in development. Dead Island 2 is the continuation of the main series, DI: Epidemic is the MOBA spin-off, and Escape Dead Island is coming to PS3, 360, and PC this fall. So what makes this Dead Island different from the rest? A lot, actually: it's third-person, cel-shaded, primarily stealth-based, and extremely trippy. As in, not-sure-whether-or-not-this-is-real trippy.

Rather than a first-person zombie slash-'em-up, Escape Dead Island takes a surreal survival-horror approach, with an emphasis on exploration. After a shipwreck, you wake up as Cliff Calo, a young videographer hoping to find out what happened after the zombie outbreak on Banoi (as seen in the original DI). Only, something is very wrong with Calo's mind--he seems to be drifting in and out of reality, reliving the same day in a constant loop but retaining the gear he finds strewn about the island of Narapela. Calo's weakening grip on sanity mirrors Isaac Clark's trauma in Dead Space; hes a lone everyman in radio contact with his friends, forced to face hordes of freakish zombies all by himself. The core of the Dead Island experience--a hellish zombie apocalypse in a gorgeous tropical setting--is here, but Deep Silver's Will Powers says the game is more in line with a "Groundhog Day meets Memento" kind of mysterious, cerebral horror.

The concept definitely has me intrigued--and with the unpredictable insanity sequences (where Calo starts seeing everything in red, black, and white), object-based exploration, and a colorful cel-shaded look, it reminds me of another 2014 release I'm stoked for: D4. Escape Dead Island is said to offer 18 hours of strictly single-player content, all at the budget price of $40. Sounds like the kind of creepy mind trip I could get into.

Check out the following screenshots for additional info!

Calo's mind is constantly playing tricks on him.

Sometimes he might randomly hear his friends telling him to kill himself after ordinary bits of dialogue, or he'll answer a ringing phone only to be screamed at by the (quite possibly imaginary) person on the other end.

The story of Escape Dead Island will fill in the gaps between the first and second main games.

There's no character crossover, but these events all take place in the same world.

Linda and Devan are Calo's hipster buddies who stay in contact via radio

From the looks of it, Calo gets separated from them very early on in the plot.

Fans of Dead Island's gore should be pleased.

Stealth kills using makeshift weapons--like a screwdriver to a zombie's neck--cause tons of bright red blood to spray all over the place.