Dead Island 2 reveals what happened to the original game’s playable characters through optional conversations with Sam B, the only returning character.
Even though Dead Island 2 takes place in a completely different location from the original and contains a whole new cast of characters to play as and interact with, there’s at least one familiar face that you’ll run into during your time in Hell-A – Sam B. Mr Who Do You Voodoo has practically become the mascot for the whole series since the original game launched, so it’s no surprise that he plays a key role in the sequel.
Still, just because Sam B is the most popular of the original game’s playable characters, that doesn’t mean that Dambuster forgot about the rest of the cast. As showcased in the video below from YouTuber MysteryMtR, at certain points in the game the player can have optional conversations with Sam B where he’ll briefly mention the fates of Logan, Purna, Xian Mei, and Carter.
At one point in the hideout, Sam B can be found trying to teach gun control to a character called Elizabeth. Another character called Curtis will then say that you need to give a gun a name to be able to wield it, asking Sam what name he’d give his gun. Sam then says that he knew a “guy called Logan” who had his back in Banoi, before calling him a redneck and saying he’d never live it down if he found out, confirming that Logan is still alive.
Sam then gets questioned about who else helped him in Banoi, which is when he name-drops Xian Mei, Purna, John Carter, and even Jin, who wasn’t a playable character in the original game, but an important supporting one. Sam B mentions that he sees Xian Mei as more of a knife, while also revealing that he and Purna stopped talking after “what happened on the boat”, referencing the ending of Dead Island: Riptide.
While it’s not explicity said that Xian Mei and John are alive, Sam’s casual attitude when talking about them seems to suggest they are, while his comments about Purna and Logan confirm that they’re fine as well. This is especially interesting considering that Dead Island: Riptide’s ending was left pretty ambiguous as to whether any of the five survived. Sam B evidently is, but it’s nice to know the rest are too, even if the ending still isn’t explained, with the only mention of the events being that Purna and Sam B stopped talking.
It’s a little surprising that Dead Island 2 didn’t go the usual sequel route of bringing back as many of the original game’s cast as possible, but at the very least it’s nice to know that they’re all still alive in the canon and are seemingly just up to their own things.
