I love Dead Island 2’s representation of a Federal/Military response to a zombie apocalypse cause it perfectly shows the extreme competence and incompetence of the American Government.
Like okay, the US Military is the most powerful institution in the History of Mankind, it’s been the only thing our country has cared about for 80+ years. Against Zombies - which just use even *less* effective version of wwI strategies - the Military can and should easily steamroll the zombies. Shit, even the strongest Apex Zombies go down with a few clips from a rifle - btw, standard issue for the US Army is the 5.56x45 M4 Carbine, or another words, your standard soldier is more then capable of taking down the most elite Zombies around, especially if they are operating in squads/units.
Like this is something a lot of Zombie Media gets wrong - I have a M61 Vulcan, it does not MATTER if I get a head shot. Hell, it doesn’t matter if I’m using a M134 - the sheer amount of concussive force delivered can, should, and will pulverize bone, tissue and organs across the entire body as your mortal flesh tries to contain the impact. Even if you need to break the brain to kill the zombie, concussive force traveling through the body will handle that. Even if it doesn’t, a zombie that’s made up of teo hundred random component shreds aint a threat, is it?
On paper - the US Military could and should have been able to handle the Zombie Apocalypse. But militaries don’t just exist on paper and when rubber meats the road, the two predictable enemies of Capitalistic Military Might rear their heads: Corporate Interests and overconfidence.
The Military intentionally released the virus onto Hell-A in Dead Island 2, with the goal of finding a cure to the Zombie Virus. The Virus would pop up inevitably, and so sacrificing the city of LA (But not the children, over 99% are evacuated before the opening cinematic) to get the 1 in a Million people who were immune to then make a cure is, to the military, reasonable. The problem is that the Military didn’t know what they were dealing with and didn’t have time to learn, and they trusted a Tech Billionaire.
The military could’ve had everything handled, but they didn’t know how to despose of Infected. So, they melted them with Acid and flushed them down the drains. Big problem - the Acid didnt kill the Autophage cells. Instead of having a few million Zombies each running as an autonomous machine, so much biomass is depositted in the Sewer that it begins to grow. The Flesh eats the fat, the waste, the garbage in the sewer to make massive tendrils and whole walls of living, thinking flesh.
In the opening cinematic, 3 days after the infection starts, the military has things pretty organized. Of course, there will be an attack against the border every thirty minutes, and at least one refugee turns out to be bit once every three hours, but things are generally hunky dorey. And then all of a sudden, a dozen earthquaks form around LA that are perfectly in line to breach all of the Military’s defenses
Dumbasses actually invented a Super Intelligent Hive Mind able to command the zombies and burrow into the earth to form artificial earthquakes
