Every time a new zombie game comes out you can expect to see similar claims about the unparalleled realism of its visceral gore system.

After all, blasting and chopping apart zombies is the beating heart of any zombie game, and it's fair to say that our time with a preview version of Dead Island 2 left us hugely impressed on that front.

We got the chance to chat to the game's developers last week, too, and one of the questions we put to them was just how an art team can go about getting the level of gore that Dead Island 2 offers up to look just right.

After all, the idea of putting in research for the sorts of flaying and flesh-rending on show gives us the total heebie-jeebies, something that was thankfully laughed off.

Dan Evans-Lawes, Technical Art Director at Dambuster confirmed that he "personally ha[s] no desire to watch people dying in real life, you know what I mean?"

The core way that he found to get around that issue while researching was to add "VFX" or "special effects" to his searches, something that means Dead Island 2 is very much harking back to cinematic gore that you'll find familiar.

After all, Evans-Lawes "definitely didn't want to give myself PSTD", and the results are a resounding rebuttal of the idea that such real-life reference was needed.

The gore in our preview is probably the most viscerally fun we've ever experienced in a zombie game - a weird, guilty sentiment, but a relevant one nonetheless.

Plus, given that the game is set in LA and features a wealth of archetypical characters to meet, even including a large movie studio for you to explore early on, it makes perfect sense that its zombie destruction has cinematic VFX at its roots.

Even on the sound side, Evans-Lawes says that the sound team used some truly classic foley techniques, "there's a lot of crushing melons, and apparently spaghetti is good for cracking bones".

So, when Dead Island 2 comes out on 21 April, you might find yourself taking advantage of some old-school techniques without even realising.