Dead Island | Riptide | Escape Dead Island | Dead Island 2
All Spoilers for entries in The Voice's folder are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Tropes relating to the characters introduced in Dead Island.
open/close all folders
The Heroes
For tropes related to John Morgan, see his folder on the Dead Island: Riptide sheet.
In General
- The Berserker: Riptide clarifies that the "Rage Mode" power-up is a side-effect of the zombie virus within them, which becomes more severe in that game. Exactly how this ability gives Logan and Purna infinite throwing knives and bullets respectively is not explained.
- Empowered Badass Normal: John counts more than the rest, due to being an expert martial artist and sailor before the outbreak, but the other four are total badasses by the end of the first game. In Riptide, everyone is forced to travel through storage facilities filled with chemical weapons and mutagens, causing the zombie virus to mutate and augment their Rage Mode and make them more explicitly invulnerable.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: In 2, Sam B implies that the group survived but all went their separate ways after the events of their games.
- Heroic Willpower: During the final boss of Riptide, everyone displays this when taking the mutagen and going berserk. Except Sam B, who has no problem dealing with it.
- The Immune: They do all the work because they're immune to the pathogen that turns others into zombies. This turns out to have ramifications in Riptide.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sam B and Purna in particular are very rude and aggressive, and Logan is very gruff and coarse. All of them seem to care about other survivors and willingly help out, but these three will blow up at anyone who questions them or slows them down.
- Schrödinger's Player Character: Subverted; The game establishes that all the characters are working together and the ones you didn't select simply appear in cutscenes. In Riptide, they appear in-game as quest-givers.
Xian Mei
Xian in Dead Island.
Xian in Dead Island Riptide.
Xian in Escape Dead Island.
Voiced by: Kim Mai Guest
Xian Mei was born and raised in China by her father, a Hong Kong police force chief inspector who taught Xian martial arts from a young age, and was murdered by a Triad enforcer. She decided to follow in her father's footsteps and joined the Hong Kong police force, where she was selected to join the first all-female anti-organized crime unit. However, the team and its members were commissioned by the police force for the PR boost rather than their skill. Xian was soon planted undercover at Royal Palms Resort as a receptionist, mostly because they had nothing better to do with her, and feels shame and disappointment that her potential is being wasted.
- Action Girl: Her bio
describes her as "a passionate sportswoman" who is "quick on her feet". Her in-game biography is totally different. The website and manual make her sound like an idealistic young girl who wants to travel the world. If you pick her off the character selection screen, you get the real story, told to you by Xian Mei herself. It's been noted that, being an undercover cop, the website is most likely telling the lie from her end, and playing as her reveals the truth about what she does. - Badass Bookworm: She is university educated, and scored the highest in her class.
- Clothing Damage: Though it's a FPS game, cutscenes and artwork showcase that her skirt has pretty much been ripped to shreds due to the zombie event.
- Combat Medic: Her three major Survival skill tree abilities focus on using medkits more effectively.
- Combat Stilettos: Xian can learn a move that involves driving her high heels into a zombie's head.
- Divergent Character Evolution: Escape Dead Island has her dressed similar to her resort receptionist look, but with proper pants and combat boots. She's more snarky and standoffish, essentially uses Cliff as a patsy to accomplish her own ends (essentially rescue Rob and blow up the island) and rather than seek a cure for the virus, destroy the labs it was created in (though she does give Cliff a chance to find a cure himself before blowing up the infected labs).
- Expy: There's more than a bit of Ada in Escape Dead Island. Chinese Action Girl, Anti-Hero, Deadpan Snarker whose loyalties are unknown, whether she's with the Chinese government, Geopharm, or someone else, and has a few Pet the Dog moments.
- Glass Cannon: Despite being a melee specialist, Xian has no defensive talents and her health pool grows more slowly than anyone else's. It is not unusual for even a high-level Xian to go down after two or three hits from a Thug or an infected with a weapon, which makes her the single worst character to play in single-player mode. On the plus side, her specialization in bladed weapons lets her attack quickly for high damage with very little drain in stamina, she gains stamina from kills with the right upgrade, and in the late game she's absolutely devastating with a katana or Zed's Demise.
- The Hero: Xian was featured prominently in the first game and works to uncover the truth in Escape Dead Island.
- Hidden Depths: As well as her profile differing wildly from the one in game, the novel suggests she observes the tourists arriving in Banoi, feels sorry for singles and chats them up.
- Low-Level Advantage: Due to her low HP growth, her durability actually goes down as you level up and the zombies level scale to match.
- Mission Control: Serves as this role first to Rob at the beginning of Escape Dead Island then to Cliff in the main game.
- The Mole: In Escape Dead Island it's left unclear whether she's working for the Chinese government, the evil Palm Garden Order that controls Geopharm, or some other secret organization, but she clearly knows more about the zombie outbreaks and the global conspiracy behind them than she let on in the first two games.
- Only Sane Woman: In the cutscenes, Xian Mei comes across as the sanest of the four heroes. She is the only person to sensibly point out that they have no reason not to trust The Voice, who's been completely helpful and non-threatening, while the others start screaming at the guy because he's an authority figure (Purna) or because they want to make their own way out (Logan).
- Overt Operative:
- Xian's cover is basically transparent. The rest of the survivors figure out something's up when they revisit the hotel in Act 2, although it's never followed up on.
- In the Dead Island eight-page promotional comic, Roger Howard discovers the hotel staff knew she was a cop from the moment she landed. In the novelization, Purna figures out Xian can't be an ordinary desk clerk pretty much immediately upon meeting her.
- The Smart Girl: When not expressing sympathy at the disaster she's this, in particularly in Henderson when she sounds like a tour guide.
- Token Good Teammate: In the first game, Xian Mei comes across as the most idealistic of the four heroes. She disagrees with the other three's suggestions to abandon the other survivors and save themselves and agrees with Jin's desire to help everybody. In the beginning of Act III she even gives a Rousing Speech to the other 3 characters to convince them to search for the vaccine and save the world instead of heading straight for the extraction point and just saving themselves.
Logan Carter
Logan in Dead Island.
Logan in Dead Island Riptide.
Voiced by: David Kaye
Logan is an ex-quarterback whose life was destroyed after he got into a nasty crash while street racing, killing his passenger and fracturing his knee. The combination of his crippling injury and the public turning on him ended his career and sent him on a downward spiral into depression. In an attempt to escape his personal demons and get away from the hell of his life back home, he took an endorsement job at the Royal Palms Resort.
- Action Survivor: While all the other player characters have actual combat training (a cop, a covert operative, an ex-soldier, and a rapper who grew up in a Had to Be Sharp environment) Logan's just an ex-football player caught in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Doesn't stop him from hanging tough alongside the other badasses.
- The Alcoholic: The only hero to gain buffs from drinking whatever whiskey can be found around the island. Side-effects include booze induced strength and more health recovered.
- Career-Ending Injury: In his backstory, he got caught in a car crash while street racing, which fractured his knee and killed his passenger, the latter of which quickly made the public turn on him which then ended his career.
- Celebrity Survivor: Once a pro-quarterback, his leg injury prevented him from continuing his football career. Lucky for him, his name is still enough to stay in the celebrity life style.
- Cowardly Lion: In the cutscenes Logan is by far the least confident, least experienced, and most "everyman" of the 4 survivors.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: With the Economical Throw and Boomerang talents, Logan has a high chance to injure multiple enemies with a single thrown weapon, doing splash damage on impact to anything nearby, and with the weapon returning to his hand afterward. This includes weapons like sticky-bomb knives that theoretically exploded on impact. Even at very low levels, his Fury attack also ricochets, letting him kill large crowds of Walkers or Infected with one or two thrown knives.
- Jack of All Stats: Logan's Combat skill tree provides slight passive bonuses to using blunt weapons, sharp weapons, and firearms, without the additional levels of specialization that the other characters are offered. This makes him very well-rounded, but he doesn't have access to any of the higher-tier skills. His only unique area of specialization are his boomerang ability and other skills related to thrown weapons.
- Jerk Jock: To the point where it wound up destroying his career.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Heavily implied when he's the only one looking at Yerema, who herself is looking to where Jin had fallen dead. He waits some time before calling to her to get in the helicopter.
- The Lancer: He tends to take a secondary command role in the cutscenes.
- Precision-Guided Boomerang: He has a special ability that causes thrown weapons to automatically return to his hand. In the first game this was a passive skill with a % chance of success, while in Riptide it's a default ability.
- Token White: Logan is the only Caucasian playable character in the first game.
- Too Dumb to Live: Only in the novel. Novel!Logan habitually mixes painkillers, antidepressants, and hard liquor, to the point where his being alive at all is a minor miracle.
Sam B
Sam in Dead Island.
Sam in Dead Island Riptide.
Voiced by: Phil LaMarr (Dead Island, Riptide), Cavin Cornwall (Dead Island 2)
Sam B is a rap star born and raised in New Orleans, growing up in a childhood racked with violence and poverty. Sam B wanted to be a rap artist since he was a small boy, but always remained small-time due to poor fortune. This all changed when he wrote a song as a joke one Halloween entitled "Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?", and the song subsequently shot him into stardom after a surge of unexpected popularity. However, he is resentful that all of his other works are ignored and "Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?" is all anyone remembers him for. This, combined with drugs, alcohol, bad business decisions, and his "friends" and advisors taking advantage of him, bruising his self-confidence and causing his career and personal life to fall apart. He booked a gig to play at a party at the Royal Palms Resort, seeing it as his last chance to rebuild his life and career.
- Achilles in His Tent: Has shades of this in Dead Island 2. He's perfectly happy with just sitting back in Emma's Mansion and waiting for everything to blow over as they have a sturdy fence and enough supplies for six months.
- The Big Easy: According to his in-game bio, he was born and raised in New Orleans, and you can hear it in his accent.
- The Big Guy: The largest player character. Having the highest HP and abilities focused on drawing ago and regenerating his health means he's the best character to tank.
- The Bus Came Back: He makes a return as a supporting character in Dead Island 2, showing that he at least survived the events of Riptide.
- Borrowin' Samedi: His artist persona seems to be based on this. His name sounds suspiciously like both "Samedi" and "Zombie", in the opening cutscene of the first game he is performing his hit "Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?" wearing a top hat, while Riptide promotional material includes a (live-action) music video named "No Room in Hell", in which he wears skull make-up.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: His specialty is blunt weapons. On the character selection screen, he is depicted holding a sledgehammer with a Tesla mod. His reappearance in 2 even sees him using normal and modded sledgehammers on a few occasions.
- Celebrity Survivor: A rapper hired to play at the cruise in the first game. He was hoping that he'd be able to impress some Hollywood big shots there.
- Chewing the Scenery: In Riptide, once some mutagens enhance his rage mode, he becomes even more berserk.PVP, MOTHERFUCKERS! This is how we churn BUTTER, N'AWLINS STYLE!
- Crazy Survivalist: By the time of Dead Island 2, Sam seems to have taken on a lot of traits like this, due to having survived 2 separate zombie outbreaks and been caught up in a 3rd, not to mention being strongly implied to have spent the last decade living off-the-grid due to fear They Would Cut You Up if his status as an immune survivor ever got out.
- Genre Savvy: By the time of Dead Island 2, Sam B warns the Slayers not to trust random voices over the radio promising them everything they want. Turns out he's completely right as Dr. Reed has his own agenda.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: His Rage attack has him beating the undead up with his bare hands.
- Had to Be Sharp: Credits his survivability with having grown up learning to fight on the mean streets of New Orleans.
- Hollywood Voodoo: According to the two songs he can be seen performing, the voodoo elements of his In-Universe artistic persona are limited to references to zombies and name-dropping Baron Samedi.
- Horrorcore:
- His hit song "Who Do You Voodoo?" is just about zombies, gore and death.
- Followed up by "No Room in Hell", which is less in-your-face about it, but still very much focused on death and zombies.
- Large Ham: Probably the loudest of the PCs. Being a rapper and hip-hop star, he has a natural combination of uncouthness and gregariousness.
- Magnum Opus Dissonance: In-Universe: Sam always wanted to be a socially conscious, political rapper and considers that material to be his life's work. The fact that the only song he ever wrote that anyone else wants to hear more than once is the Horrorcore track he wrote as an elaborate joke for a Halloween party has left him very bitter.
- The Mentor: In 2, being a veteran Zombie Apocalypse survivor means that he's the one that teaches the Slayers tricks of the trade such things as Item Crafting.
- One-Hit Wonder: Invoked In-Universe by "Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?". Sam was an aspiring rapper who didn't make the charts until he churned out that song, which he had made as a joke. Of course, this one song happens to be the only one anyone wants to hear, and Sam's attempts to distance himself from it fail as he fades into semi-obscurity again after unsuccessfully trying to produce another hit.
- Papa Wolf: In the novel, he's particularly protective of Jin, acting as a surrogate father to her.
- Patrick Stewart Speech: Some TXT files have a good one that could have been his closing dialogue. It's essentially his musing over how extreme conditions bring out the integrity and strength of the best of people, and that seeing those gave him inspiration. Once he punches his way out of the zombie apocalypse, he'll have a song to sing.
- Punny Name:
- Sam B. Zombie. Get it?
- In "Who Do You Voodoo," he also draws a deliberate line from his handle to Baron Samedi, the loa of the dead. The black top hat Sam wears on stage is one of Samedi's trademarks.
- Regenerating Health: He's the only character that is able to regenerate health, via his skill tree.
- Scary Black Man: Sam is easily the most aggressive of the four survivors, and the most inclined to leave others to their fate. He's also the easiest to get to see reason, though, which may count as a partial aversion. He also mellows a bit in Riptide.
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: His in-game bio says that he generated one song that became extremely popular, spent more than he earned through partying and self-indulgence, realized he needed another hit, and failed to make another hit despite making several new songs.
- Stone Wall: He's got the most health of the 4 original survivors, and his skill tree has talents focused around damage reduction, health regeneration, and drawing aggro. As a tradeoff, he has fewer stamina-related perks and can tire quickly.
Purna Jackson
Purna in Dead Island.
Purna in Dead Island Riptide.
Voiced by: Peta Johnson
Purna is a former Sydney police officer. Embittered by harsh racism, sexism and rampant corruption in the force that prevented her from advancing her career and doing her job, she one day decided to take the law into her own hands, confronting a child molester who had used his wealth and connections to escape prosecution. The man laughed at her and pulled a gun on her, which she turned on him and shot him with. While it was correctly argued to be an act of legitimate self-defense, she was fired regardless. Bitter and cynical, and with no clear future left for her in Australia, she turned to working as a bodyguard for VIPs in dangerous places all over the world. She is hired as much for her looks as her skill with firearms.
- Action Girl: She's an ex-detective that had to work nearly thrice as hard as the men to get her position. Even after losing her job, she still works as a bodyguard, and is often hired for her skills.
- Awesome Aussie: She's from Australia, and she's very skilled in making the undead dead again.
- Combat and Support: Purna has a number of different auras that provide a flat multiplier to her teammates' stats, and you can pick talents that turn her Fury mode into a group-wide instant heal and short-term buff. In the early game, before you can find much in the way of guns, Purna's primary use to the group is as a force multiplier for the melee.
- Cowboy Cop: She wound up taking the law into her own hands... Naturally, this is the reason she was fired from the Sydney PD.
- Glass Cannon: Like Xian, Purna is designed for pure offense. The closest thing she gets to a defensive skill is the near-100% heal from Guardian Angel.
- The Gunslinger: Of the four, she's the most proficient with guns, and her Rage attack has her pulling out her gun and firing on all zombies in sight, ammo not being an issue.
- The Hero: The intro narration of Riptide is told by her, and she seems to be the leader.
- The Leader: Most likely, considering how she narrates the intro for Riptide. Her "aura" skills also make the other player characters fight better when they're nearby, sharing her boosts.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Purna has a reputation as being an under-powered character because firearms and ammunition in both games are very scarce until you get through the opening levels. Once she has a reliable source of ammo and the chance to get a blue-quality shotgun or automatic rifle and slap on a shock, fire, or poison mod, an appropriately specialized Purna can stack her auras, damage multipliers, and rage mode together to become a one-woman apocalypse. The other characters have substantial advantages of their own, but as firearms take more precedence in the late game, no one else can match Purna's sheer damage output.
- The Musketeer: While her main skill is with firearms, she also has some skills that boost her ability with melee weapons.
Non-Playable Characters
The Voice (SPOILERS)
Colonel Ryder White
Voiced by: Joe Hanna
The first person you "meet" in the game, The Voice contacts you through the hotel's intercom system and guides you to safety through the prologue level. Throughout the game, it's mentioned that he has been contacting the various groups of island survivors (most prominently John Sinamoi's group) in an attempt to coordinate a response to the zombie outbreak. When the players eventually succeed in making radio contact with him, he reveals his identity and requests that they help him by retrieving a vaccine for the zombie infection before meeting him in person to escape the island.
Ryder serves as the protagonist of the second DLC for the game, which sheds new light on many aspects of the main campaign's plot.
- Anti-Villain: Subverted. He has the exact same goals as the Survivors: make an antidote out of the vaccine. Unfortunately Kevin/Charon manipulated the Survivors into thinking he was going to nuke the island and hoard the vaccine, and as a result the main campaign paints him as a monster. However, he never had any intention of harming the heroes, nor did he call down a nuke. Sadly, he loses his temper at the wrong moment, and in an act of desperation turns himself into the monstrous Final Boss without ever explaining himself.
- Bullet Time: His Rage ability triggers this, and also gives him an infinite ammo super-pistol, similar to Purna's Rage ability.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Ryder's profile mentions that he was a member of the SASR, a.k.a. the Aussie version of the British SAS, and even fought in Iraq, East Timor, and Afghanistan.
- Meaningful Name: The fourth horseman of the apocalypse is a rider on a white horse (in other words, a White Rider), identified by some as Conquest or the Anti-Christ. So the name Ryder White is rather appropriate for a Big Bad who kicks off the zombie apocalypse. Subverted when you learn that Colonel White was Good All Along and it was Charon who was the real Big Bad.
- Promoted to Playable: One of the pieces of downloadable content is a campaign that features him as the playable character.
- Tragic Monster: The DLC campaign certainly puts the final boss fight in a whole new light.
- Unwitting Pawn: It turns out he was never the Big Bad at all, and spent the entire outbreak simply fighting to survive just like the Heroes.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: He's the first (living) contact encountered in the game, and he communicates to the survivors through radios on the island while they try to reach him for salvation. Subverted in the Ryder White campaign, where it's revealed the Voice was Kevin impersonating Ryder all along.
Jin
Voiced by: Tara Sands
A mechanic's daughter first encountered at the end of Act I while the heroes are looking for a mechanic to help them modify their armored truck so it will be capable of safely punching through the barricade blocking the way into town. She accompanies the four heroes for most of the game and serves as their sidekick of sorts. The players can store their excess inventory with her while she hangs around at the various game safehouses.
- Break the Cutie: Ignoring everyone's advice, she attempts to help the gangsters who have taken over the police station by giving them some food. They repay her kindness by capturing and (it's heavily implied) raping her. Afterwards she's heavily traumatized and also much more cynical, agreeing with Sam B, Logan, and Purna that everyone on the island can just go straight to hell (Xian Mei convinces the other 3 to save everyone after all, but Jin has simply stopped caring). To make things worse, she's later forced to mercy-kill her infected father. It's understandable she's more than a little bonkers by the time the final confrontation rolls around.
- Genre Blind: Jin refuses to pick up necessary zombie survival skills. She remains unarmed and aims to help everyone rather than being selective about the sort of people she encounters, leading her to attempt to share her supplies with the criminals occupying the police station. They end up beating up Joseph, then capture and rape her for her troubles.
- The Heart: She's the quietest, most idealistic non-combative of the main crew.
- Human Pack Mule: The main skill she has to in-game.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: She's the daughter of an American man with a Southern accent, but she speaks with a rather neutral American accent rather than a Southern or even Aussie one. Then again, pretty much every Banoi native's accent is a mixed bag.
- Stupid Good: Jin has a good heart and wants to save everybody on the island, but did not consider the poor character of those she was willing to help.
- Too Dumb to Live: Makes a series of bad mistakes, first due to idealism and then out of apathetic cynicism. She is eventually killed releasing an antagonist's zombified loved one to make a point against him about his willingness to kill faceless thousands, but hesitation to kill a loved one up close (similar to how she had to do with her father), leading to him killing her. It's indicated however, that after having to mercy-kill her father, she had given up on herself as well and didn't care if she got killed.
- Wrench Wench: Her outfit and the fact she's the daughter of a mechanic heavily imply this, although she doesn't do any repair work during the story itself.
Earl
A mechanic and Jin’s father
- And Then John Was a Zombie
- Face Death with Dignity: Is already infected by the time the group meets him. Cares more about Jin’s safety.
John Sinamoi
Voiced by: Steve Blum
A hotel lifeguard who took charge during the crisis and brought together all the survivors he could find in an attempt to save them from the zombie outbreak. Besides keeping his group of survivors alive, his main goal is to make contact with The Voice, who has promised to provide a means of escape from the island. He gives you the majority of the main quests for the first half of the game. He eventually manages to escape Banoi and reach the island of Amanai, only for that island to also fall prey to the zombie outbreak. Meeting up with a new band of survivors, he becomes their Mission Control, coordinating the team's efforts to combat the zombie hordes and secure supplies from rival scavengers.
- Badass Normal: His opening scene has him fighting a half a dozen zombies, and save you from the last one with a very accurate knife throw. And he doesn't have the fancy viral immunity the protagonists have, so a single bite would have resulted in his death.
- Gentle Giant: He's muscular, imposing, and sports rather intimidating tattoos. One survivor even says that he was afraid of going to the lifeguard tower because of Sinamoi's facial tattoos.
- Heroic BSoD: He likely suffered through one when he witness the survivors turn on and then kill a young girl because she was running a high fever and they suspected her having become infected. His voice even crackles under the pressure when telling the Heroes this, showing that Sinamoi is greatly affected by this. This also maybe the reason why What Happened to the Mouse? happens to him, because Sinamoi is too shell shocked to speak..
Mother Helen
Voiced by: Jean Gilpin
A nun in the city of Moresby, she and several other survivors have taken refuge in the church. Throughout the second act, she gives out several missions.
- As the Good Book Says...: Less in her dialogue and more in the missions. Practically every mission from around the church has some form of religious pun in it.
- The Fundamentalist: A benign example, she sees the outbreak as end of days and heavily invokes religion, constantly, her quests essentially setting things right for Judgment Day. Nonetheless she opens her church to survivors and outside of doing the Lord's work her sole focus is on helping anyone still alive.
- Good Shepherd: Considers it her duty as a nun to offer all the protection, comfort and succor that she can to any survivors in the city.
Yerema
Voiced by: Sumalee Montano
A member of one of the native tribes of Banoi, Yerema ran away from her village to attend school in Moresby, and has since returned home in the wake of the outbreak. She's crucial to the attempts to cure the disease that's turning people into zombies, as by the time you run into her, she's one of the only living uninfected members of her tribe.
- Abusive Parents: Her father treated her as nothing more than property, and before the outbreak, he sealed her up in the traditional burial ground of their people to starve to death. When he leads the other survivors there, he tries to kill her himself. The novelization reveals he had her ritually beaten and gang-raped by some of the tribesmen for daring to have left the tribe to seek an education in the city. This is how the initial outbreak occurred; her rapists became the first zombies, then her father had the tribe cannibalize them to become "immortal" and they went on to start the outbreak.
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Looks down on her father's shamanistic beliefs and practices. Justified because it was his insistence on following the cannibalistic rituals they preached that led to the tribe becoming infected with the disease.
- Doom Magnet: People tend to die around her. A lot. Partially justified in that she's the source of the outbreak.
- MacGuffin Super-Person/Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: It's heavily implied that Yerema is "special" and closely tied to the virus, with the possible implication she's a Typhoid Mary carrier of the virus or at least may hold the key to a cure. Her being a Typhoid Mary is made explicit/canon with the novelization and the Ryder White campaign; Charon manipulated the survivors to believe she was a cure holder when in fact she was the key to further weaponising the virus.
- The Paranoiac: When the party returns to the lab and rescues her, they find she has allowed the doctor who was examining her to be killed. She justifies it as self-defense with claims that the doctor was going to drain her completely dry of blood in order to experiment with creating a cure. It's unclear if she really believes this — perhaps due to the stress she's undergoing — or if she was lying and just making it up so that the crew wouldn't turn on her, or if it's somewhere between the two. The novelization implies she's lying.
- Ryder's campaign seemingly vindicates her, as it shows that Dr. West was allied with Charon all along. Although West seemed sincere about using her blood to make a cure, he didn't act terribly concerned with her continued well-being either.
- Stripperiffic: Yerema's wearing face paint, jewelry, and a brown bikini. To be fair, every member of her tribe that we see is wearing the same thing, including her father.
- Typhoid Mary: She's the source of the mutant kuru virons that create the infection. It's uncertain if she knows this or not, depending on how much she overheard the doctor reporting to Charon.
Kevin Barrister
Voiced by: Zach Hanks
One of the inmates on the island prison, incarcerated for an unknown crime.
- Badass Bookworm:
- Sure, he literally writes himself off as not being one of "the badasses" at the endgame, but he managed to escape alive from the three-way battle between Titus's crew, a group of other prisoners, and the undead to then rescue the protagonists from the elevator.
- In Ryder White's campaign, it's heavily implied that he killed a Thug and tossed its body into the sewers just prior to you reaching his control room.
- Consummate Liar: He plays every major character in the game like a cheap fiddle. He impersonates Ryder White to manipulate the 4 Heroes into doing his work for him, and lies to the Heroes and Ryder about Dr. West's compound being a vaccine for the virus, when in fact it's actually a super-powered version of the original virus that creates uber-zombies.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even he knows that Frank Serpo is an untrustable bastard who will sell his own mother.
- Greater-Scope Villain: He seems to be shaping up to be the series' Albert Wesker to Geopharma/the Palm Garden Order's Umbrella Corporation.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's the real Big Bad of the series, and unless you read the novel, or play the Ryder White expansion, you never know it. That's how good he is.
- Non-Action Big Bad: It's heavily implied that he's Charon, the hacker-for-hire who has worked for everyone from Al-Qaeda to the Yakuza. This is confirmed in the Ryder White DLC, where Kevin is revealed as the true identity of The Voice and the true villain of the entire game.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Escape Dead Island reveals that the virus killed his father. So he perfected it, seeks to destroy those who created it then unleash it on the whole world.
- The Smart Guy: He's all right with hacking doors that use electronic locks, but considering that the only two groups he spent any visible length of time with were maximum-security prison inmates and the four protagonists, he's basically the tech-savvy one by default.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: He's quickly taken away by the military in the intro of Riptide, so whatever plan he had cooking doesn't pan out in the game.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Escape Dead Island presents him as this, by revealing tragedies he underwent that give him his motivation, but it's unclear whether it's sincere or simply more manipulation on his part.
Jason
An insane hostile survivor living in a shack next to Overpass Camp.
- Ax-Crazy: Holy hell. This guy's a raving lunatic.
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: Downplayed. He wears a hockey mask and attacks with a machete, but there is a lootable chainsaw in his shack.
- King Mook: He looks quite similar to regular zombies (the hockey mask isn't unique to him), but he is one of the toughest enemies of the game.
- Lightning Bruiser: Runs faster than the protagonists when they sprint, can one-hit-kill them, and has more health than any enemies except the Banoi Butcher and the final boss. He's even tougher in the Definitive Edition, which seems to be based on the pre-patch version of Dead Island (before Jason was nerfed and Banoi Butcher was made into a proper boss).
- Mêlée à Trois: While hostile to the player characters, he is fighting a groupe of Walkers when you meet him.
- Optional Boss: Lives in an area involved in absolutely none of the main quests, and it is possible to reach Overpass Camp without aggroing him.
- Shout-Out: He is an insane killer named Jason, wearing a hockey mask and wielding a machete. He also keeps a chainsaw in his shack.
Roger Howard
A reporter who came to Banoi to investigate illegal logging, and ended up getting a lot more than he expected. He has a wife and son (Karen and Jakob), and the recordings he leaves that the protagonists can find are often addressed as a last will and testament.
- Badass Normal: He manages to travel virtually the same path as the protagonists, without their immunity. He even makes it to the prison island, but by then has been infected, succumbs, and is killed.
- Hope Spot: One recording is made as he is holed up in a small store, with the undead swarming outside. He knows that the door won't hold, and says goodbye to his wife and son, apologizing that he wasn't home as much as he ought to have been. And then... they leave, apparently having detected better prey. In fact, he escapes his apparent death in virtually all the logs, which tend to end in curses or screams of the undead. And then the player finds the last two audio logs in the prison, the last of which having been recorded after he'd turned and contains the voices of the guards who had to shoot him.
- Posthumous Character: He's long dead by the time the heroes get to him, and his only characterization is told via Apocalyptic Logs.
- The Voice: He's only ever heard in the voice recordings.
Zombies
Walker
The most common zombie as well as the weakest. They move slowly and don't deal as much damage as the other zombies, but often appear in large groups that can overwhelm their prey more easily. They are generally more mutilated, implying that this is what happens when someone killed by zombies subsequently comes back.
- Fan Disservice: They tend to be dressed in revealing swimwear... and are also missing large chunks of flesh in various places...
- Zombie Gait: Walkers are the stereotypical lumbering, slow-moving zombie that only pose a threat when found in large numbers. However, while not nearly as fast as an Infected, they can lumber along surprisingly quickly at times. After they get close enough they can rush the player about as fast as an Infected would for a short burst in order to try and grapple the player.
Infected
The least durable type of zombie, but also the fastest. They deal high damage and often attack in groups similar to Walkers. In contrast to Walkers, they are rarely mutilated extensively, and often sport bloodied bandages. This implies that humans who are bitten by a zombie and then escape, only to succumb to the virus, become Infected.
- Ax-Crazy: Hinted in Howard's logs and his infection to be those that were driven to murderous insanity by their fever causing them to hallucinate.
- The Berserker: They care little for injuries and will keep coming until they are hacked/shot to pieces.
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge: They may be rated low on the threat level as far as Kessler is concerned but these can easily be the biggest danger thanks to this, they may not kill in one hit but have a tendency to attack in groups, hem you in and gang bash you.
- Fragile Speedster: A couple hits will put one down... if they don't kill you first.
- Glass Cannon: They pack a mean punch although they practically fall to pieces when you manage to start retaliating.
- Spiteful A.I.: Their lives depend on your death and they are not content to just chase you all over the map or rage if they cannot get at you, they even resort to spawn camp so even after killing you they can rush in and do it again in a vicious cycle.
- Technically-Living Zombie: Unlike the Walkers, which are implied to be those who either died/or killed and reanimated, these guys are hinted to be still alive as their ability to take punishment is about on par with a living, breathing person.
- Unstoppable Rage: Their psychotic fury is truly terrifying to behold.
Thug
Tall, muscular zombies that can send survivors flying with a single punch. They're the unfortunate end result of what happens when guys who were really big when they were alive fall victim to the virus. They move extremely slow and rely solely on brute strength.
- Battle Cry: If you hear a really loud roar... keep moving. They'll also do it after being hit twice, which is the only time they can be attacked without retaliating.
- Determinator: Short of ramming them with a vehicle, they can't be reliably knocked down like the other zombies. One reliable way to deal with them alone is by breaking/cutting off their arms. They'll keep coming at you though, attacking with head butts while their arms flail around limply.
- Mighty Glacier: They move slow, but have lots of health and can deal a lot of damage with just a single hit.
Suicider
Painfully self-aware zombies whose only form of attack is to blow themselves up next to a survivor and kill them with the resulting blast. Luckily, they can also harm other zombies this way.
- Action Bomb: The only way they can attack is with a self-destructive explosion.
- Body Horror: They're covered in pulsing, pustulant tumors.
- Fate Worse than Death: They're trapped in a hair-trigger exploding shell covered with fleshy tumors and self aware enough to beg for help.
- Glass Cannon: It's the only zombie that can one shot the players, but a couple decent attacks from a distance will easily dispose of them.
- Hell Is That Noise: When you hear a raspy, creepy voice calling for help that signifies one is nearby.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: If the survivor has a gun they basically serve as a "wipe out this zombie horde" button. Boom.
- Made of Explodium: Their bodies have some built up gases inside which causes the explosion.
Ram
Huge zombies strapped inside straightjackets. It's implied that they originated from the prison, presumably having been unstable prisoners who happened to be in restraints when they were infected or even prisoners who were restrained because they became infected. As their name implies, they attempt to rush the player with a powerful charging attack.
- The Berserker: It's not very concerned for its own safety, and will attack any survivor in its line of sight relentlessly with charges and kicks until they or their prey are dead.
- Bullfight Boss: All its really capable of is charging at the player and trying to bite them if they're in melee range. A standard fight will involve a lot of dodging as it constantly charges.
- Lightning Bruiser: It's huge and has lots of HP. It also moves extremely fast when charging and will take out a significant chunk out of your HP if it hits you.
Floater
Bloated zombies found near water that can spit a strange type of slime at survivors to damage them from afar.
- Body Horror: Its grotesquely bloated body plus transparent skin lets you take a good look at its innards.
- Dead Weight: Much like a Boomer. They even use similar attacks!
- Fan Disservice: Like most other zombies, it's almost naked, but as its name implies, it's fat and bloated. Also, its skin is transparent and its guts spill out when it dies.
- Hell Is That Noise: When traversing flooded areas, if you hear a loud roar/gurgle, a Floater is nearby.
- Logical Weakness: If you can trigger the electrocution effect of a weapon on them, they die pretty quickly, being bloated, water-filled corpses and all.
- Kevlard: Besides having lots of health, they're also resistant to most forms of damage, especially bullets or fire.
- Mighty Glacier: Moves at a slow waddle, takes a large amount of damage before dying.
- Zombie Puke Attack: Nasty acid slime stuff.
Butcher
One of the strongest types of zombies in the game. Butchers move fast and deal heavy damage with the sharpened, exposed bone on their arm stumps, which can make them a pain to deal with when other zombies are nearby. Butchers appear as mini-bosses in Escape Dead Island, albeit with a visual redesign.
- Autocannibalism: Its heavily implied that the reason it has arm stubs is because it ate its own hands sometime during or after infection.
- The Berserker: Like the Infected above, once they spot you they will pursue you relentlessly until you or themselves have been killed.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Their forearms have been reduced to one (or two, in Escape Dead Island) curved, sharpened bones, which they use like knives.
- Improbable Weapon User: Uses its own arm bones as weapons.
- Lightning Bruiser: Like Infected, they sprint at you and can deal a huge amount of damage in a short span of time. Unlike Infected, though, they have a lot of health and can't be stunned, save for with elemental effects or knockdown modifications like the Magic Wand.
- You Don't Look Like You: Its appearance in Escape is quite different than its other appearances. It lacks the flayed look of the classic Butcher, instead having gnawed-off lips and a few gashes on an otherwise untouched body, and it has two curving bone-blades emerging from each gnawed limb-stump.
