According to a new report, Dead Island 2 is alive and well and is in a “decent” enough state to release soon. That’s per known insider Tom Henderson, who claims to have spoken to people familiar with Dambuster Studios’ plans. Dead Island 2, which was announced eight years ago, has shifted development studios twice and was rumored to be literally dead. “According to everyone that I’ve been speaking to, the game is in decent state and it could be announced pretty soon with some kind of gameplay trailer,” Henderson said.
When will Dead Island 2 release?
Dead Island 2 is expected to release in the fourth quarter of 2022, but Henderson said that there’s a possibility it will slip to 2023 “if there are any problems with the development cycle.” “You’re on a plane and there’s a zombie outbreak on a plane. Eventually, the plane crashes into Hollywood, you survive, and it’s then your job to survive on the ground,” he added.
Dead Island 2 was supposed to be developed by Techland but the studio went ahead with Dying Light. Publisher Deep Silver greenlit a pitch by Yager Development but both companies parted ways over differences in creative vision, later resulting in Yager filing for bankruptcy. In 2019, parent company THQ Nordic announced that it handed over development to Dambuster, but little has been heard about the game since then with the exception of a job advertisement that seemingly confirmed next-gen versions and a leaked early build of Yager’s Dead Island 2.
Opinion: Dead Island 2 is a little late to the zombie party
Zarmena writes… The zombie genre currently feels oversaturated. In presence of games like The Last of Us Part II, Dying Light 2, and numerous others, I’m not sure how well Dead Island 2 will do especially considering the first game was nothing to write home about. I also hate to point out that Dambuster doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record but studios have turned things around so you never know. One thing’s for sure: Dead Island 2 has stiffer competition today than it did years ago.
In other news, the latest PS5 firmware update beta’s full changelog has been released, and Sony’s offering a free online multiplayer weekend.
