Me and my brother came across this odd problem in Dead Island where in the Jungle area, you have to help that Ope guy to the boat, there's this small ledge he has to get down, however, he sees fit that he instead, goes off the ledge and onto the ground below, only to corkscrew into the ground and die, thus causing the players to reset to the last checkpoint
The only way we got past that was letting Ope walk on my head long enough that he wouldn't land exactly next to the ledge