The Dead Island trailer broke my heart. As a father and husband, it was painful watching the horror happen to that family. I told myself I didn’t think I could play the game if it was going to be that storyline. Emotionally, the trailer moved me that much.

Then, Techland let on about game play. It was some Dead Rising (cool!). It was a bit Left 4 Dead (yay!). It was a dash of Borderlands (nice!). It was an open tropical island paradise with night and day (awesome!). It was a rapper, an assassin, the leader, and a jack-of-all-trades. …none of which seemed to be the father or mother from the trailer.

Techland then backed away from the trailer. They said that it was showing what happens before the game starts. Its purpose was basically to introduce you to the game world, and show that no one is safe. I get that. But, what happens to that family? I’m attached to their plight.

I thought about it a bit more, and realized that I did want to play that game. I wanted to be that father. I wanted to play through, find out what happened, and stop whatever it was that destroyed my family. I wasn’t too interested in being a character not attached to that family.

Why doesn’t the game pick up from there? It could be a single-player only prelude. The trailer could be the opening cut scene for the father as a playable character. The movie could play out, and end with the happy family video. Then, cut to black.

Fade back in and find the father outside on the side of the hotel. He found a purchase on which to stand, away from the reach of any undead. We look down and see a pile of zombies who tried and failed to get at our current protagonist. He looks around and we get a good view of the area surrounding the hotel. The father is still distraught at the loss of his family, and contemplates just falling.

Then, he hears a voice coming through electronically. From inside the hotel room, a walkie-talkie that was attached to hotel security or island police is squawking, “Is anybody there? Can anyone hear me, please?!” The father crawls back in the room, answers the call, and the player is led to a point in the game where co-op play can begin.

That could work. Yes, the zombie daughter bit the father, but the whole premise behind the current playable characters is that they are immune to the zombie infection. So, he could plausibly continue on afterwards.

That trailer shouldn’t be just a marketing tool. People reacted strongly to it. By itself, the trailer sold copies of the game. The developers should make it part of the game. Do something beyond a zombie beat’em up. Take a page from World War Z, or The Walking Dead, and tell a very human zombie apocalypse story.

Dead Island sounds like a great game, but I lost interest in it once I learned that the well-done trailer had nothing to do with the game that’s going to be in the package.