Visually, Monarch Studios is the most diverse location inDead Island 2. Sure, this is primarily due to it being a movie set with the areas literally being ‘designed’ by film staff, but it’s also one of the only areas that has unique zombie designs tied to it with the zombies in the Ruins Set. And, while it’s a relatively small area ofDead Island 2, especially compared to something like Venice Beach, there’s still a lot to do here. Players will find themselves doing a variety of Quests for oneSarah Sheppard, who plays the lead in Space Fox 2250, an in-game nod to multiple franchises (such asMass EffectandStarfox).
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And, the last quest they’ll do for her and her cowardly companion Sebastion is calledThe Terror of Sound Stage 7. In this Side Quest, players will be hunting down a couple of contracts for Sarah from the 7th Sound Stage as well as a rare zombie that’s been preying on other zombies and corpses in the area. So, let’s go over every aspect of this Side Quest, step by step.
Clear The Ruins & Investigate The City Set
After accepting the Quest fromSarah(who is in her Trailer this time rather than by the giant animatronic spider), players will want to just follow the blue compass marker into theSound Stage. This marker will lead them right to theRuinsset that they became intimately familiar with during the Main Story QuestMichael Anders and the Holy Grail. OnceDead Island 2players make it on set, the Quest objective should change to ‘Eliminate all hostiles in Sound Stage 7’s ruins set’. As soon as this pops up, the zombies should start digging up out of the ground on the set and players will want to take them all out, preferably by using both theLight RigandRain FX Switchesjust for the sake of convenience.
After clearing out theRuins, players will be told to ‘Set coordinates to Sound Stage 7’s city set’ which they’ll remember also from theHoly Grailquest as the set where they needed to get a breaker to open the door forward. Return to thisCity Setfollowing the blue marker and immediately the objective changes to ‘A hidden Terror lurks within these streets. Investigate its victims’. In this section, players will need to find the three different corpses the Terror was chowing down on spread out around the set and interact with them. Here’s where to find them:
After interacting with all three corpses, the player’s Slayer will make some cheeky comments about the Terror not coming out of hiding before the objective change to ‘The Terror is a Butcher! Lure zombies to the city set and kill them to bait it out’.
Lure Zombies To The City Set & Draw Out The Terror Of Sound Stage 7
This next objective is one of the only ones in all ofDead Island 2where players are told to actuallylure zombies to a specific area rather than just killing them on sight. To lure out theButcherAKA theTerror of Sound Stage 7, players will need to bring zombies into theCity Setand kill them, 5 zombies, to be exact. The quickest way to do this is to run outside of the city set, fire a singleNail GunorPistolbullet into 5 nearby zombies, and wait til they get a bit closer before throwing either aMeat BaitorBait Bomb Curveball(two of the better Curveball options)into theCity Set. Alternatively, players can specifically look for nearbyRunnerzombies and get their attention, as they move much quicker than the other basic zombie variants, making the objective a lot less tedious.
In any case, right after killing 5 zombies on set, the objective becomes ‘Use the city’s SFX to attract the lurking Terror’. This request is odd, because why did the player need to kill zombies on set if the SFX would’ve brought the Terror over anyway? Regardless, to do this players just need to interact with theTemple Doors FX, which is the right-most briefcase SFX in the middle of the set. Directly after this, players will notice a blue objective arrow appearing somewhere nearby, this is marking theTerror, and it’s time to take it down.
Kill The Terror Of Sound Stage 7 & Report Back To Sarah Sheppard
Depending on how far the player made it into the Main Story before starting this Side Quest, this may be the firstButcher Apex Zombiethey interact with. So, for those players, the best way to deal with theseApex Zombiesis to simply shoot or hit their legs when there is a window, and then as soon as they’re winding up to attack focus onPerfect DodgingorPerfect Parryingto make them more vulnerable.
Just swinging wildly won’t work againstButchersas it does for most other zombies inDead Island 2, as theButcherswill put up theirBlade Armsin response and block all incoming damage. Thankfully, not too many basic zombies spawn alongside theTerror, so players can focus on it entirely since it’s quite tanky. As long as players time their defensive maneuvers correctly, theTerror of Sound Stage 7isn’t all too difficult to deal with. Just make sure to pick up theRavenous Survivor Skill Cardoff theTerror’sbody, as this Skill is incredible for massively increasing the duration ofFury Mode.
The Terror Of Sound Stage 7 Side Quest Rewards
After theTerror of Sound Stage 7has been neutralized, it’s time to report back toSarah Sheppardabout the player’s success. Once this is done, the sci-fi star will give players theJade Dragonweapon, aSuperior Curved Swordwith unique jade sections on its handle.
Alongside this, players will also receive the standard3,000 EXPthey normally get from most Side Quests. Overall, thisDead Island 2Side Quest isabout average in terms of rewards, with theRavenous Skill Cardbeing by far the best thing obtained from it. But the real reward is that doing this Quest progressesSarahandSebastian’sstoryline, eventually ending with one last Side Quest inHollywood Boulevardwhere they reward the playerwith aLegendary Weaponfor helping them out so many times.
Dead Island 2is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X\S.
