DLC #105 - Dead Island - Bloodbath Arena

The Bloodbath Arena DLC adds a survival arena mode to Dead Island, with 4 arenas of varying difficulty, requiring the player to survive wave after wave of zombies in increasing volumes. A very simple concept at it's core, and one which has been used many times in various games before.

The package adds 10 new trophies, all catered towards progression within the arenas under differing circumstances, and most of the list will require you to reach a certain amount of waves under specific conditions, most of which aren't generally that challenging.

Surviving a certain number of waves using custom weapons, only fists, analog fighting controls and on each of the 4 arenas all yield trophies upon completion, with a couple of throwaways on the side. Where left unstated, these can be achieved on any of the 4 arenas, so you can choose Arena A (Easy), if your only intention is to unlock the trophies in the most efficient way possible, though tougher arenas yield better rewards in terms of experience points and item drops, which can be useful if you're also still chasing trophies from the main game's list.

As a small side note, you actually may find this game mode challenging if your character hasn't been substantially leveled and/or holds some strong equipment. It feels like the game mode was designed to be tackled later into the game, and doesn't favour low leveled characters. It also doesn't favour solo or smaller parties, which may make it slightly tougher if you're trying to go for these trophies alone, which you can do for most of them, though you will need to play in co-op as a minimum requirement for some of the trophies of this list. As for the more direct challenges;

Gladiator School - Survive 15 consecutive waves with each of the 4 characters.
Morituri te salutant - Survive 30 consecutive waves with at least one co-op player.

The "Gladiator School" trophy, requires the player to survive at least 15 waves in any arena with each each of the 4 main characters. The difficulty around this trophy has already been touched upon above, and this is a tough one to achieve unless your character is a high enough level to get through 15 waves of enemies. In reality, you won't have leveled all 4 characters substantially enough to tackle this without taking a few shortcuts. The main game's list only requires you to achieve level 50 with 1 character, and the only other way you'll use the other 3 is for the "Right 4 Life" trophy, which only requires you to reach Act 2 with every character, so chances are, purely from a trophy hunters perspective, you'll have to complete this trophy using 3 weaker characters.

So what are the tactics out there which can help you achieve this trophy in the easiest possible way? Firstly, you can have a team of stronger players carry you through to wave 15 if you don't want to invest the time playing through the game and strengthening your characters beyond Act 2. It's obviously in the best interest of the game to attempt to contribute where you can, but your effectiveness will be limited, especially as the size and strength of the hordes grow through the rounds. Secondly, you could get your hands on a modded gun, of which there are plenty in the game at this stage of it's life cycle. It may be that some of the people you group up with already have modded guns, which makes light work of the zombies, but they may also drop them for you to use, so it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to take advantage, primarily because it allows you to take an arena on in solo mode.

You could, of course, just level each of the 4 characters up to around 30+ and make this manageable, but this takes a long time, and both of the above methods work just as well when it comes to the end goal of achieving the trophy, so just save the time and effort, unless you actually enjoy the game enough to significantly level 4 different characters.

The "Mortituri te salutant" trophy, is here for similar reasons, though is somewhat easier because you can use your primary character you reached level 50 with in the main game for this one. The above 2 methods will also work in the same way, but you most likely won't need to resort to these in order to achieve this trophy because your main character should be strong enough, with a decent selection of weapons to get you through 30 waves. It takes a while to get through 30 waves (about 45 minutes), so you'll need maximum concentration. Your partner will also need to be similarly high leveled, which you should make sure is the case straight away. You don't want to be in a position where you're carrying your partner, so make sure they're a high enough level and their equipment is strong enough for a good contribution.

Every trophy other than the 2 mentioned above can be comfortably achieved in solo, providing you just use your strongest character and go to work. The others will require assistance, but all outlined methods work well when trying to achieve these trophies, and actually require minimal work. It can be tough to find players at the stage of the game's life cycle, and you will need a willing runner to reach wave 30, so there a few obstacles to overcome along the way.

NOTE : This DLC is an excellent outlet for many of the trophies contained with the main list of the game. It is especially useful for leveling up your character, obtaining epic loot and also unlocking a series of miscellaneous trophies within the main game's list. It is certainly worth taking advantage of when you consider what you may need to still achieve from the main game. This will be mentioned in more detail during the write up of the main list.