Dead Island 2 Message in a Bottle Side Quest Guide

While Dead Island 2 has rather generous quest markers, the game does occasionally make you search over a wide area with vague directions. That’s the situation you’ll find yourself in during this specific quest. Here’s the full walkthrough for the Message in a Bottle Dead Island 2 side quest.

Dead Island 2 Message in a Bottle Walkthrough

During your first visit to The Pier zone, there is a bottle on the beach near the water that starts this side quest. As with all side quests, the blue diamond with the exclamation mark makes it easy to locate.

Your objective is to “use the message in a bottle to find the arrogant food critic.” The attached journal entry suggests that the message’s writer is stuck in “the Bucket.” Once you take the stairs to the main entrance of The Pier itself, keep going straight. This path takes you to the Bucket O’ Fish restaurant. You’ll need to run through the restaurant to find a note left by the food critic.

The note is called Review: Bucket O’ Fish: One Star. It mentions “grilled food” and that the military “set up a landing pad right by its front door.” Backtrack from here to the Pier’s entrance and take the right-hand path through the fence, past the helicopter.

On your immediate left is a building called the Pier Grill. When you get close enough, the quest objective changes to “scour the Pier Grill for any sign of the arrogant food critic.”

Go into the ruined patio and around the front of the helicopter to find a new note.

Make your way back to the Lifeguard HQ, and take a moment to craft any missing medkits and repair your strongest weapons. When you venture back out, head away from the water to the area behind the Lifeguard HQ. Ahead, you will find the Hot Dog Shack.

Continue forward around the Hot Dog Shack and into a fight with a Slobber and a large group of zombies. The Slobber is named A. R. Oliver, and it is our missing food critic. I’d recommend using a semi-auto rifle as some sort here, as it’ll allow you to deal solid damage at range. It also means you can chip away at the health bar from a safe distance, making the Slobber’s spit attack easier to dodge.

Kill the Slobber and pick up the dropped Review; Hotdog Shak: Telvteen Strs note to finish the quest. Finishing the quest will only give 3,000 XP. However, killing the Slobber gives the Caustic Blight skill card.

With the food critic Slobber slain, this concludes our full walkthrough for the Message in a Bottle Dead Island 2 side quest. For more guides and tricks, check out our links below.