Dead Island 2 won’t let ‘base’ PS4 or Xbox One consoles host co-op at launch

Hosting parties needs a little more oomph

Dead Island 2 finally rises from the ashes this week, with plenty of zombies to slay in either solo or co-op. But if you’re running on some older hardware, you’ll need to be the one joining rather than making the party.

In a blog outlining Dead Island 2‘s co-op features, Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver clarify that certain consoles won’t be able to host parties, only join them. These are, specifically, the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, and the Xbox One S, or what they call “Base Generation 8.”

Because Dead Island 2 co-op games are peer-to-peer, rather than server-based, this means a player will have to host the game. Dead Island 2‘s graphical requirements mean that, at launch, a base Gen8 console won’t be able to handle hosting co-op, only join it.

“We’re working on giving the option to host on all consoles in the future,” reads the blog post.

PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S players are fine to host. Higher-mark Gen8 consoles, or the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, can also muster the resources to handle it.

It’s also important to note that Dead Island 2 is not cross-play, only cross-gen. PlayStation and Xbox players cannot play with each other in Dead Island 2. But, those within the same family of consoles—Xbox to Xbox, or PS4 to PS5—will be able to team up. You’ll also need to reach a certain point in the game to unlock co-op as an option, though Dambuster estimates this should be about 20 to 30 minutes in. Players also can’t jump ahead in the story, so while someone at Chapter 6 could help another at Chapter 3, it does not work in reverse.

City (un)living

Hopefully this is a road-bump that can get cleaned up soon after launch. While more people seem to be moving up in console generations, there may still be some folks getting their last miles out of the PS4 and Xbox One. At the very least, it’s nice those players can still join on higher-generation system’s parties.

If you’re wondering whether this L.A. getaway is worth it, you can check out our review here, which comes away with a similar sentiment I had after playing it at PAX East: it is a bit of a miracle that this game actually came together.