We had a request to figure out what’s going on with Dead Island 2 and I thought to myself, “This should be an easy one.”
…Boy was I wrong.
Since the initial statement back in 2014 where the sequel to Dead Island was announced, there have been many unexpected turns. So many so that it’s actually strange that the game hasn’t been fully cancelled at this point. It’s saving grace in that department, I believe, is the fact that a number of companies have such a financial stake in the game that they continue attempting to move forward with it.
To start off, Techland, the developers of the original Dead Island, left the game to go and create Dying Light. Dying Light was such a successful zombie game in its own right that they have even moved into the development of the sequel (with a release date). This is sort of where things started to get hairy. Techland has created almost two full new Zombie games all while people have been waiting for Dead Island 2.
That trailer looks pretty great right? Well it was created by Yager Development who were brought in to reboot the development of Dead Island 2. They originally proposed its release for 2015, God-willing. In July of 2015 though, Deep Silver announced that it would be parting ways with Yager. There was however promise of continuing the work on Dead Island 2 and keeping the public informed.
Nearly a full year later, Deep Silver announced that Sumo Digital would be taking over development of Dead Island 2. After that we have heard almost nothing regarding the game aside from vague assurances that it was still being developed. That is until a rumour about DS Dambusters Studio taking over development. Unverified at first, it is now official that Sumo Digital has concluded their work on Dead Island 2.
With Dambusters Studio, a subsidiary of Deep Silver, now working on the project, one can only hope that they will be pushing out a finished project within a short period of time. Unfortunately fast development is not something this series has been known for at all. We have no word as to whether the previous development worked on by Sumo Digital will simply be continued by Dambusters or if, once again, the game will be started from scratch.
Dead Island 2 – When is it coming out?
If you look around online you can find Dead Island 2 for preorder on a few places. Amazon for one, with the release date of December 31 of this year!
With everything that has happened to this game over the years I can only hope this is accurate. That by 2020 I’ll be able to run around killing zombies in a sequel to a fantastic original game that almost entirely disappeared from us.
I just won’t be too surprised if something happens before that.
TLDR
Dead Island 2 has been through a roller coaster of developers. Currently on its fourth developer since its announcement in 2014, Dead Island 2 has an expected release date this year! December 31 of this year but this year nonetheless! Pre-order on Amazon (Since you’ll likely be out drinking that day anyway).
