Dead Island 2 apparently still going to happen. That’s according to the official Dead Island Twitter account. The sequel to the original open-world zombie hack-and-slash game is still under development, but we will have to wait further until the publisher is going to share more about it. We first learned of Dead Island 2 in 2014 where the game was planned to release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
The Dead Island Twitter account was celebrating the release of their mobile spin-off game called Dead Island: Survivors for iOS and Android. This mobile entry into the zombie action franchise is a very different beast than the original two games however, with a top-down view and tower defense elements. Fans of the original Dead Island games naturally couldn’t help themselves and used the chance to inquire about the long-announced sequel. Usually these kind of questions simply get ignored but this time we actually got an answer.
Dead Island 2 looks to be still in development and not like many assumed, faded into quasi-cancellation. After all, Dead Island 2 was originally announced way back in 2014 during Sony’s E3 briefing. But while we got a nice trailer to accompany the announcement, it got quiet very quick around the game, and we didn’t hear much from it ever since.
The original Dead Island was developed by Techland and released in 2011. The game didn’t become a hit with critics, getting average scores but it seems players didn’t share the opinion. It became a success despite having a repetitive gameplay, enough to warrant a sequel with Dead Island: Riptide two years later. An open-world ravaged by zombies and a focus on close-quarter melee combat has proven to be an untapped formula for success.
Techland went on to work with Warner Bros. Interactive and created Dying Light in 2015. A spiritual sequel to Dead Island which refined and improved almost every aspect of the original game. Dying Light became a huge success and the team just announced a sequel this last E3.
Maybe it was the departure of Techland which led to Dead Island 2 not getting off the ground properly. Publisher Deep Silver initially chose German studio Yager Developments of Spec Ops: The Line fame but later announced in 2016 that Sumo Digital would to helm the project.
It remains to be seen how far the developement of Dead Island 2 has come and when Deep Silver will be ready to finally share more info on their game.
