Whilst there were some major limitations, the DLC's conclusion was well worth the purchase.
It merges so well that I'm not sure whether this was planned in the beginning or somehow developers Techland knows how to use Dead Island's 'missing links' to explain White's story. Whatever the case maybe, I will admit that upon the conclusion to this DLC, it was marvellous indeed – actually one of the best I have seen for quite some time as it actually made sense.
The gameplay is essentially the same as there will be plenty of zombies to slice and bash away however there are some major changes made to keep the story's momentum going. I thought initially that these changes were for the worse however looking in hindsight, some were good and some were unpleasant.
The first thing you'll noticed that Ryder is locked at level 15 – period. So there's no XP gained for killing zombies and the locales are linear in fashion. Immediately one's thought is that it's preposterous that coming from the open-world game to a linear based / no XP game is hard to grasp. Well, after a couple of hours, I felt that it was necessary to do so as the developer's main goal is to tell the story, or better still, fill in the gaps from Dead Island thus somehow restricting the player to ruin it otherwise.
That I can live with (after a little convincing from my alter ego) however there was a bigger change that I was not a fan of. The game lacks materials for you to build weapons. I get it that Ryder is part of the military however because I scored the ripper mod DLC, I cannot locate the blade anywhere. What this means I can never create the ripper…or many other weapons as there were just two schematics to locate. The first is placing voltage for the crowbar and two the stun gun (for which I never used).
Whilst Dead Island was famed for being mostly melee combat, Ryder's campaign can be melee orientated however you soon realise there's a lot more ammo lying about – actually a lot more in this DLC than the entire original game. Well, that a slight exaggeration however you will be doing a lot more firing guns as well as melee (unless you played Purna of course) as the zombies arrives in packs. Even Ryder's 'frenzy' is very similar to Purna – that is using his pistol.
The locales are restricted to Port Moresby and the Prison Island so there will be a sense of déjà vu however because of being linear, you won't get the chance to explore the entire set. However the bright side is that there are different maps like trolling outside the island prison and the docks in Port Moresby. That was a nice touch indeed that made this DLC somewhat exclusive.
The entire campaign can be completed within ten hours (or maybe less) therefore it's a decent length considering. There's no replay value after completion and no one can join you for coop fun (for obvious reasons). Yet don't let that distract you for not purchasing it as if you enjoyed Dead Island (like me), you most likely enjoy Ryder's campaign. And the highlight for me was definitely the ending – well worth it.