Xbox Game Pass adds Dead Island – but you’ll have to be quick

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can jump into zombie-thumping action RPG Dead Island for free this weekend.

Following the reveal of Dead Island 2 at Gamescom Opening Night Live last month, the first game in the comically grotesque zombie series will be free to play on Xbox for a limited time. 

According to a Microsoft blog post (opens in new tab), Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can play Dead Island Definitive Edition for free from now until Monday, September 26 at 12am PST / 3am EST / 8am BST / 6pm AEDT.

It’s joined by Hunting Simulator 2. Both games have been made free for the weekend as part of Xbox’s Free Play Days program, which offers Game Pass and Gold subscribers new games to try every week.

How to get Dead Island on Xbox Game Pass

You can download Dead Island for the weekend through your Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One. Load up the Store, navigate to the Subscriptions tab, tap on the Xbox Live Gold tile, and scroll down to the Free Play Days section. There, you should find Dead Island ready and waiting.

You can also download the game remotely through your PC. Head over to the Dead Island listing page (opens in new tab) on the Microsoft store, sign in with your Xbox account, and click the green ‘Install to’ button. A list of all consoles connected to your account will be thrown up, letting you remotely install the game to whichever one you want.

Dead Island’s main campaign clocks in at around 20 hours, so you’ll have to dedicate a big chunk of your weekend if you want to see it through. It might not be one of the best co-op games around, but its gruesomely gung-ho melee violence and four-player co-op campaign are worth checking out with a couple of buddies. This is the Definitive Edition, too, so includes all of Dead Island’s previously released DLC.

Bashing in the heads of zombies across a tropical paradise might also get you in the mood for the game’s upcoming sequel, which is set to shamble onto screens on February 3 next year. But don’t expect a total do-over. In our hands-on session with Dead Island 2, we found we couldn’t just button-mash our way through the game. Hopefully, distracting zombies with Amazon Alexa will give us the advantage we need.