Dead Island 2 has been haunting the news since 2014, but nothing concrete has been announced yet. However, the head of the company behind the publisher gave a pretty clear announcement in an interview that the Survival game is still in development and may be announced soon. Read everything about it here on MeinMMO.
What is Dead Island? Dead Island was released in 2011 (a standalone addon called Riptide came out in 2013) and placed you on a tropical island where the zombie apocalypse has broken out. As one of 4 survivors, you fight your way through the zombie hordes in an open world, trying to survive and find out what is really going on.
The gameplay of the game is reminiscent of the hit Dying Light, which also comes from the same developer. The focus of the game is on combat with bats, machetes, and more, as guns only appear very late.
Players praised the game for its wild, brutal fights, its unusual setting, and its gripping atmosphere. On Metacritic , the game scored 80 points. Therefore, fans have been eagerly waiting for part 2 for a long time.
The Long Winding Road of Dead Island 2
What is the deal with part 2? Besides the addon Riptide and a remaster from 2016, there has been nothing new about Dead Island. Part 2 has been in talks repeatedly, although its development history is extremely bumpy.
In 2014, there was news that development on Dead Island 2 had been underway for 2 years. However, not much new has come to light about the project since then. Only in 2017 and most recently in 2019 was it roughly confirmed that work was still ongoing. Since then, it has been quiet about Dead Island 2. Until now.
Why is it taking so long? By now, the developer should be the Dambuster studio, which had taken over Dead Island. The original developers had taken over the new project Dying Light and handed Dead Island to the studio Yaeger Development. That was in 2014, and Dead Island 2 was supposed to be released in 2015. At Gamescom 2014, there was already playable material to see.
However, in 2015 there was a breakup between publisher Deep Silver and Yaeger Development. Dead Island 2 was then handed over to Sumo Digital, but this only became public in 2016. In 2018, it was confirmed that work on the game was continuing. In 2019, the publisher changed yet again. Dead Island 2 has been with Dambuster studio since then.
The people at Techland, on the other hand, have just released Dying Light 2 and there is even an Easter egg for Dead Island in it. You can find a record there that plays the song “Woho Do You Voodoo” – which comes from Dead Island (via YouTube).
The original Dead Island quickly ended up on the index back then. The game was just very brutal and bloody. However, in 2019 the indexing was lifted and the game is freely available again (via GameStar).
Boss Says Little About Dead Island 2 Yet Says Everything
What has been said about Dead Island 2 now? In the latest quarterly report of the Embracer Group on YouTube, their CEO Lars Vingefors spoke. The Embracer Group is a Swedish holding company that includes the publisher of Dead Island and others.
Vingefors was asked during the meeting if there was any news about Dead Island 2. He replied that it would be difficult to discuss this game. Because it has not yet been announced by the publisher. However, he added:
But we have an unannounced AAA title – the one you think is Dead Island 2. I can’t say more about it, but I’m really excited about such unannounced titles.
What does this mean for fans of Dead Island 2? Lars Vingefors’ statement doesn’t concretely say anything. But you can read between the lines that he clearly expects it to be Dead Island 2 and that it may be announced soon by the publisher. After all, he is “very excited about these unannounced games”.
So much for Lars Vingefors’ statements and the possibly still forthcoming Dead Island 2. What do you think about it? Are you also looking forward to the sequel to Dead Island or was the zombie massacre in the vacation paradise pretty irrelevant to you?
Since Dead Island 2 is certainly not coming any time soon despite a possible announcement, we have here a list of survival games that you can play until then: The 24 best survival games 2021/2022 for PlayStation, PC, and Xbox.
