In the Hell-A of Dead Island 2, cash still inexplicably rules everything around me. The zombie takeover of Los Angeles has not devalued hard currency, so you still need to keep an eye on your bottom line. Here’s how to make fast fat stacks of cash in Dead Island 2.
Disaster Capitalism: How to Earn Money Fast in Dead Island 2
Early in the game, cash looks hard to come by. You can find abandoned wallets as both zombie and world drops that have $15-45 in them, but vendor weapons are expensive, Fuses are $1500, and level-matching a decent weapon at a workbench can cost thousands.
As you move further into Dead Island 2, you’ll occasionally find coin vaults and cash registers with a little more money in them. Almost any zombie can drop at least one wallet, which you’ll automatically loot by walking over it, and Apex Infected can drop as many as three.
More importantly, once you’re up and rolling through Hell-A, you’ll notice that almost every individual action you can take in-game has a Challenge attached to it, and hitting a rank in a Challenge comes with a cash prize that you’re awarded on the spot.
As a result, Dead Island 2 is one of those games where it initially looks like you’re being drip-fed resources, before you glance at your inventory after an hour and realize you’ve got $20,000 on you.
You Should Mostly Only Spend on Fuses, Adhesive, and Ammo Early On
Even so, vendor weapons and the level match feature are newbie traps, there to trick you into burning money. About the only things you should be regularly buying at traders in the early-to-mid-game are Fuses, high-demand crafting materials like Adhesive, and a stack or two of ammunition.
The level-match feature is always available, but for the first 60% of DI2, you’ll be replacing weapons so often that it’s almost never worth it to level-match. Further, it only does what it says it’ll do: It matches a weapon’s level with yours, without upgrading its quality.
Any gray, white, green, or blue weapon in DI2 is doomed to obsolescence once you start routinely getting purple drops, so level-matching anything other than a purple weapon is just shoveling cash into a fire. (There are plenty of unique and legendary weapons to find too.)
Hell-A Is a Sellers’ Market: Sell Extra Gear for Fast Cash
As Dead Island 2’s loading tips will tell you, the big money is in selling your spare weapons to traders. Uncommon-quality melee weapons can go for around $1,000, while rares can net $4,000+ and superiors can easily get $6,000+. Guns will fetch a significantly higher price.
If you get into the habit of selling off gear you’ll never use, rather than scrapping it or throwing it away, you’ll never be hurting for money. It’s not worth it to level-match a weapon for its resale value, but you can make a lot of money by hunting Apex Infected and looting red disaster crates for weapons to turn around and sell.
It’s also worth occasionally liquidating your crafting materials. Some are too rare or useful to part with, naturally, like Alloy, Adhesive, Wire, or Scrap, but several others are so common that you might as well sell off the stack. Specifically, Fabric, Chemicals, Aerosols, and Blades are all really common, and/or hard to use up, so make an effort to only keep 50 or so of them on hand. It’s a small but useful additional revenue stream.
In addition, one feature that DI2 doesn’t highlight as often as you’d think is the Unclaimed Property tab in your storage locker. If you leave a map without picking up a weapon, whether it was a random drop or something you abandoned, it’ll typically end up in your Unclaimed Property tab.
By the time I’d hit DI2’s postgame, my Unclaimed Property tab had a few dozen random weapons in it, from gray debris to superior-quality guns. This is annoying to cart to a trader but can be worth thousands.
How to Become a Cash Money Millionaire for Survival Skills in Dead Island 2
If you’re going for 100% on Dead Island 2, one of the real sticking points can be the Survivor Challenge “Hollywood Rich List,” which is part of the “Survival Skills” trophy / achievement. This requires you to have earned a total of $1 million over the course of the game.
Honestly, it’s not as hard as it looks. By the time you’ve finished the main story quests in DI2, you’ve probably earned and spent anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000. If you focus on wrapping up side missions, hit the level cap for “Max Headroom,” and sell off any weapon drops you accumulate along the way, you’ll make the additional money for Hollywood Rich List before you know it.
That’s all you need to know about how to pile up cash and make money fast in Dead Island 2. Don’t buy weapons off traders, sell your extra gear, clean out your Unclaimed Property, and let your cash stack up on its own.
