Explaining the Autophage Mechanism in Dead Island 2

Later in the game, you’ll be able to use powerful Skill Cards with Autophage, which has an additional advantage and disadvantage. The best cards in the game are autophage cards, but you have to sacrifice some of your humanity to get them. What you should know is as follows.

A Handbook for Freshly Minted Self-Cannibals: Autophage and You

Dead Island 2’s Autophage property is indicated as a black-and-white talent icon on a number of your skill cards.

All autophage cards share one thing in common: while they offer decent benefits, they also have a hefty downside. Your melee attacks in Fury mode might deliver more damage but use more Fury when you use them, or a fighting skill might cause a status condition yet deplete your health.

You can advance up to three tiers in the in-game Autophage menu (above, lower right) each time you equip a Skill Card with Autophage. Like the cards, Autophage has both substantial advantages—many of which center on your Fury mode—and harsher consequences.

Autophage Tier One

Depending on the character you’re playing, you suffer a little penalty to your Toughness or Peak Health at Autophage Tier One.

Every time you kill a zombie, you receive a bonus to either your Force or Attack Speed. You can stay angry for a little while longer since your fury mode lasts a little longer before it expires and any zombie you kill while in it recovers a little portion of your fury meter (around 5%).

Autophage Tier Two

While stamina regeneration is slower at Autophage Tier Two, killing zombies grants you a momentary bonus that, upon successful attack, recovers stamina. In addition to the advantages from Tier #1, you gain from longer Fury mode duration and meter regeneration (8% each zombie kill in Fury mode).

Autophage Tier Three

At Autophage Grade Three, you no longer passively regenerate health, and food and medical kits greatly reduce your HP recovery. Instead, every time you kill a zombie, you acquire a substantial amount of health and receive a brief damage boost. On a level 30 Carla, I tested this out, and I was earning more over 1,000 Health each Walker kill.

Your Fury mode duration is also greatly boosted, and each time you kill a zombie in Fury mode, you replenish your Fury meter by about 10%.

You can stay in Fury mode for an incredibly long time with Autophage Tier Three when used in conjunction with the Anger Mismanagement and Ravenous Skill Cards. While trying this, I spent a good five minutes in Fury and just left because it became monotonous. You may now slash through crowds of zombies that would have otherwise been a real threat. You might actually experience a zombie shortage in Hell-A when you’re in practically perpetual Fury mode.

Down With the Sickness is a trophy or achievement that can be unlocked by reaching Autophage Tier Three at any time, even for a brief period of time.

It’s simple to complete the Combat Challenges Dangerous DNA (kill zombies when at Autophage Tier Three) and Furious Fighter by going on an Anger Mismanagement / Tier Three spree (kill zombies in Fury mode).

This isn’t really a cheat code though. Fury mode, as you’ve presumably observed by this point, allows you to deal a lot of damage in bursts, but it’s not very effective against some of the game’s most difficult foes.

Particularly Mutators tend to have strong defenses against any kind of damage you deal when you’re in Fury. Even while you can intimidate Crushers and the rare naive Butcher with high-Autophage Rage, you still need to exercise some caution.

In contrast, Dani and Jacob both have baseline Health Recovery levels that are low enough to allow them to move around with Tier 3 Autophage without changing their overall strategy. If anything, one zombie kill at Tier Three is worth a 30% heal, which is an upgrade above their normal numbers. It’s quite impossible to die as long as you’re battling hordes rather than singular targets like named Mutators.

As of this writing, there don’t seem to have been any significant modifications to the Autophage mechanic-related plot of DI2. The tutorial makes it sound as like there might be additional disadvantages to staying at high Autophage than those indicated on the in-game option, but if there are any, they haven’t yet become apparent.