Riptide adds a new fifth character, who I played as, with some fun hand to hand moves. A new features allows you to build up proficiency in weapon types to unlock bonuses when using those weapons. An aerial attack, that stairs make easily exploitable, has been added that allows you to dive off higher areas to crush a zombie underneath you. Other new additions include throwing weapons, new weapon mods, and many new enemy types. The main characters talk a lot more than in the first game, speaking when taking quests and during story quests instead of just in cutscenes. The characters that aren't being controlled by a player appear in game at your current home base where they can fight with you in new defense sections and they can be brought items to improve the weapons they fight with. The inventory system has been improved by no longer counting medkits, thrown weapons, and alcohol towards capacity.

No real combat improvements from the first game, the game is still kind of buggy, and the opening new location, and location where most of the side quests are, is boring and requires constant backtracking. You might get a main quest that causes you to travel back to an area you were just at during the last quest because now you are able to open a door in the area to complete a new quest. The level cap has been upped to 70, the first games was at 50, allowing you more freedom when choosing skills. You can either import a character from the first game or start a new character at level 15. This means you will probably take all the skills that get you new combat abilities at the very start of the game, meaning you are never really doing anything at the end of the game that you couldn't do at the beginning. If you have recently played the first game in the series this can make Riptide even more boring with how feat changes there has been to the combat system.

Fun to play with friends but does get boring when you are alone.