Beat as Purna imported from the previous game. Years ago I beat it as Sam and knew the new staff weapon type was probably the best melee type. So I had Purna keep a modded staff as backup while mostly throwing blades. I went around with a full inventory of various knives to throw, and only entered melee combat as a last resort. This was an extremely effective combat style but it had a 2 problems: 1 being that it could take the entire inventory to kill a thug (never tried it on wrestlers or rams), and 2 being that it took significant time to retrieve all the weapons, so it was not viable during those few sections with infinite respawning enemies. Early on I had a weak white revolver, though it was not particularly effective. I also had a flare gun and nail gun but those sucked, and were difficult to find ammo for. It was not until completing the first map and going into the tunnels that I found a proper arsenal of guns and began using them more than throwing. A bit later I got a harpoon gun and decided to use that as my primary weapon. It was not quite as deadly as proper guns or throwing, but it had good range and efficiency. It did take a bit of time to retrieve used harpoons though, and some were lost over time leading to having to restock from a merchant. The biggest problem I had was that the merchants selling harpoons did not always have them. I have no idea why. It usually took 2 shots to kill walkers, and the first shot would knock them down. Most often I stayed at range and finished them with the second shot, but if it looked clear I would finish them with the head stomp or kicks. The harpoon gun was loud though and drew every nearby zombie, leading to bigger and more intense fights than sticking to throwing/melee.

I did not like the first area and the boat because of those drowner zombies. It made no sense why this zombie type existed (the lore established that waterlogged zombies become floaters), and I hated how they would bee line for the boat. I ended up barely using the boat at all because I could walk right past the drowners without alerting them. I even carried the heavy quest items through the water on foot; tedious but safe. I did not like the team quests and how there was a bunch of non immune non playable characters following us around; I preferred the simpler set of up the first game. The team quests were particularly annoying because of having to go into the menu to activate them, and the rewards were somewhat questionable. I can see how upgrading weapons made the siege events easier, and maybe upgrading the shops gave more access to ammo (I did not buy any weapons other than a sniper rifle). I did not like the siege events either because they were a bit too intense for the otherwise slow pace of this game. I could see them being much more fun in coop play, but having to do everything myself was annoying, especially when I was constantly getting jumped from behind. The npc immune characters really should have helped out with defenses and at least approached the offensive power of the player. I found the best strategy was holding up somewhere relatively safe and focusing on the direct threats to me. It made no sense how the non immune managed to get through any of these sieges without getting infected.

By the end game I had completed nearly every quest and found every collectible. I looked online to find the few I had missed. I generally played slow and steady, methodically killing every zombie in my path, but the constant back and forth for the quests in the city made me start sprinting past enemies to save time. Most of my early deaths were from the fast bosses. The fast infected were enough of a threat, while the stronger but still fast butchers were a reasonable threat that could still be overpowered in basic melee. But the boss infected were way too deadly, especially given the close confines most of them were found in. They really needed shock firearms to kill safely. Most of my later deaths were from knives thrown by walkers because that was a one hit kill. Totally not fair, and I almost never seen it coming. I do not remember having this trouble with Sam, so perhaps it was from keeping distance and using the slow reloading harpoons. Screamers were just as deadly as the infected bosses, so I used sniper rifle and shock assault rifle. Thugs were easily killed with harpoons, while rams were a pain; I usually used hit and run with explosives, shoot harpoons from a safe location, or shoot them in the back. The grenadiers were a much higher threat to Purna without Sam’s natural health regen, so the harpoon was not quite effective enough. The wrestlers were disappointing because they were just bullet sponges with little real threat, as long as I fought with guns; just like thugs. At least Rams had a charge. I think the wrestlers were poorly thought out and needed some kind of ability to make them stand out and be a much larger threat.

Purna finished at level 65 and had maxed out blades and firearms. Her blunt skill was low from only occasionally using staves, and unarmed low just from kicking. Her gear:

Level 65 purple shock auto rifle

Level 58 blue pride shotgun

Level 65 green quick bolt action sniper rifle

Level 58 green shock harpoon gun

Level 61 purple super quick heavy pistol

Level 64 purple short circuit katana

Level 57 blue tesla staff

The rest of her inventory was filled with good blades to throw, and the rocket launcher.

I do not remember much about my initial playthrough as Sam. I used mostly melee and most likely used whatever weapons I found until they broke. I did keep several modded weapons on hand and his inventory included every type of gun (including the flare, nail and stun guns). His much lower ammo capacity compared to Purna meant I wanted as much ranged option as possible. He is level 68 with max blunt and blade, 8 unarmed and 7 firearms. His gear:

Level 63 purple pride auto rifle

Level 68 blue pride shotgun

Level 60 purple shock heavy pistol

Level 59 green dangerous bolt action sniper rifle

Level 67 green shock harpoon gun

Level 65 blue short circuit staff

Level 63 purple short circuit katana

Level 64 blue venom wakizashi

Level 66 white short circuit katana

Level 66 blue short circuit fire axe

Level 68 blue scorching chinese war sword

Level 58 gold saw blade big baseball bat

Level 65 green shock nail gun

Level 67 green dangerous stun gun

Level 60 white spiteful flare gun

I also played John for little bit way back after I finished Sam, but he is low level in the beginning.

I really liked most of the new features of this game, particularly the expanded complement of ranged weapons. Though they really needed to update the ammo interface to include the new ammo types. I do wonder if the staff might be overpowered though. It was great that throwables and med kits no longer took up inventory slots. There were 2 annoyances with keybinding. Years ago I playing as Sam I set my side mouse button to be kick, but it would not work this time so I had to bind it to V. That might have to do with hard binding that button to lower mouse sensitivity in the mouse control program, but still annoying that kind of conflict could exist. I also had to change flashlight from X to left alt because X seemed to be hard coded to throwing flares. Despite the itemisation and user friendly improvements of this game, I found the settings and story to be less compelling than the original game. It has the same great gameplay, though the video gamey nature of loot and enemies respawning after you leave breaks the immersion a bit. It balances out to be about the same as the original.

8.5/10