Dead Island 2: Autophage Dead Island 2 guide, tips

Dead Island 2 offers autophage abilities and perks. Our guide explains what the autophage is as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using autophage-related abilities.

Last update: 20 April 2023

Autophage is a unique element in Dead Island 2, tied to the playable character and their gear. This page of the guide explains how to unlock autophage skills as well as pros and cons of increasing your autophagy. You'll also learn about autophage perks and applying them to your weapons.

• Autophage skills
• Autophage perks

Autophage skills

Autophagy is a condition resulting from the protagonist's infection and their immunity to zombification. It grants you special autophage skills, letting you use the virus to enhance yourself and gain new abilities.

You'll unlock autophage skills after completing the main quest The Final Gauntlet, that is, after meeting Dr. Reed for the first time at the Serling Hotel hideout in Ocean Avenue.

From that point forward you can start receiving or finding autophage skill cards. They differ from regular cards by having a skull icon.

Each autophage card placed in an active slot increases your Autophage Tier by 1 - the cap is 3. It can be described as your infection progress, coming with pros and cons.

The most important advantages of autophagy are:

1. Rewarding killing zombies (more force, faster stamina regeneration, more health and damage).
2. Increasing fury duration.
3. Rewarding killing zombies while furious (replenishing fury).

The disadvantages of autophagy are:

1. Less endurance (Tier 1 and above).
2. Slower stamina recovery (Tier 2 and above).
3. No automatic health regeneration (Tier 3).
4. Less effective healing items - med kits, drinks, etc. (Tier 3).

The most serious disadvantages only happen at Tier 3. You can mitigate the drawbacks via health recovery skills, such as counterattacking and blocking. We've discussed these techniques in more detail on the How to heal? page.

Autophage perks

Autophage perks are unique blueprints easily distinguishable by their black background in the blueprint menu.

You'll automatically unlock your first autophage perk while completing main quests in Venice Beach. From that point on you can start finding, receiving or purchasing further autophage blueprints.

You can apply autophage perks to melee weapons and firearms, granting them new traits. In addition to regular crafting ingredients they can also require monster parts, such as limbs, skin, lungs or spines.

You can obtain them by:

1. mutilating and dismembering zombies (use weapons such as axes to do so) - this increases the chance of them dropping body parts as loot;
2. finding them in containers - you have a decent chance of finding body parts in toxic waste containers.