Are There Any Points In The Game Where You Can't Go Back...

[Herreken]

...To a previous area? I'm trying to rush through the story so I can get a katana in Chapter 9. Then I want to go back and do the side quests. It was very painful only being able to use the katana for such a short time in the last game. I want to use one as much as possible in Riptide.

[qmjs]

If you upgrade Zoey to the third level, she sells a katana.

Technically, you can go back to any of the quick travel areas up until the very last moment, so there are no areas you can't get back to. However, some of the areas change slightly due to actions you take.

[Herreken]

Hi qmjs. Thanks for the ressponse. I didn't know you could upgrade sellers. I'll look into that. Thanks again.

[Herreken]

Hmm...seems like I have to wait for Chapter 9 either way. It looks like the last item I need to upgrade Zoey is only found in Henderson.

[qmjs]

Yes, you are right, I thought the third Zoey upgrade quest used stuff you could find in the jungle dead zones, but it is only in the city dead zones.

The earliest place it shows up in the loot files is the tunnels, so you can find them as random drops before Henderson (not very far before Henderson, but a little.)

[Numinar]

You can always go back to previous areas, but there are some narrative issues with certain NPC's which are irrevokable once triggered.

[Wh1ppet]

The full answer:

Once you go to Henderson, ther is a quest or two that if you have not done them are no longer available, but other than that, you can go back, all the way up to the endgame, where it will tell you can't go back and ask if you are sure you want to proceed.

You don't need to go back, though. If you race through the whole core story to get the minimal gear you wanted, you can start it over from the beginning, with all the gear you still have from the previous play through, and play the whole game again. This is true in both Dead Island games.

[Herreken]

I was thinking of doing that but wouldn't my katanas be underpowered compared to the rest of the enemies that level up all over again?

[Wh1ppet]

You don't lose your levels, they top out at 70 for players and gear, and the zombies don't scale up in a scripted manner but are always scalled to the player. This is the case even when you are gonig Co-Op.. If you are lvl 60 and your Co-Op buddy is lvl 20, when you are seeing lvl 61 zombies, they are seeing lvl 21 zombies... Yes, your gear would slowly being less and less useful as you trudge through the replay and you level without it levelling, but you will have it. If you are already lvl 70 and have all lvl 70 gear, you are already peeked out and nothing changes.. And finally, once you have visited Henderson, you can loot until you find the components needed to unlock the good store buys in your next play through, so you can just buy another Katana if you need it.

[Herreken]

I did the quests for the blade seller but I never saw a Katana in her inventory so I just gave up. I got Katanas from Stan's house. Maybe that seller (can't remember her name) would stock more Katanas in my second play-through but I'm kinda tired of Dead Island.

I played the first one (for the second time) and Riptide back to back. Many fun hours of hacking zombies up but it's time to move on.