Where Is Dead Island 2? The Story So Far

I’ve been waiting for Dead Island 2 since its announcement in 2014, I’ve decided to delve into the rocky development cycle of the upcoming? Dead Island 2.

Dead Island 2 was originally slated for a 2015 release date with Deep Silver planning on putting Techland behind the wheel, unfortunately for Deep Silver, Techland was focusing on Dying Light for Warner Bros. at the time so development was passed onto Yager Development and at E3 2014, we got to see what Yager had pulled off. You can view the cinematic trailer and gameplay footage below:

While the footage was taken from an early alpha version of the game it looked pretty good. Dead Island 2 was now set in America, California instead of the original Banoi and it looked like the infection had spread worldwide this time around. Most gameplay elements look similar to the original games crafting, RPG and open-world gameplay with added improvements. With the big reveal being quite a success it was announced that we would get to buy it Q2 2015. Sadly Deep Silver had announced that it was going to be pushed back into 2016 and gamers accepted it, some games need polish and work before release.

Fast forward to July 2015 Deep Silver released a statement “Yager and Deep Silver’s respective visions of the project fell out of alignment”. Yager Developments work ceased on Dead Island 2. After that Deep Silver assured us the game was in good hands. March 2016 it was announced that Sumo Digital the guys behind Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed and LittleBig Planet 3 were now the lead developers but we saw no release in 2016, 2017, or 2018. It’s now 2019, the only real news that was announced was that on August 2017, the game is still in development, the same news again announced July 2018.

This is where things get a little fuzzy and pretty much everyone is clueless due to the lack of information that Deep Silver is providing. A now-deleted tweet by Jan David Hassel, a developer from Yager Development surfaced in December 21st 2018, but nothing came of it, Deep Silver offered no statement and evidence still pointed towards Sumo Digital still being behind the Dead Island 2’s undead wheel.

The thing that confuses me is why Deep Silver is keeping it so quiet. Games Journalism sites have reached out to Deep Silver but never get a response. It’s obvious that development has been troubled since Yager Development left and it puzzles me as to why they wouldn’t reassure players and perhaps share more. The fans of Dead Island 2 I feel wouldn’t mind as long as we knew where it was in development or if it’s even happening anymore. Pre-orders are still live across the UK with release dates stating 2018 or to be confirmed. Dead Island 2 has also disappeared from Deep Silvers website but you can see Dead Island 2 on Sumo Digital’s site. Dead Island 2 feels like a game that will never see the light of day, but I hope I’m completely wrong as the Dead Island series is a fantastic one.