Despite being delayed yet again, developer Dambuster Studios and Publisher Deep Silver seems to have some more information to give us in the coming weeks about their survival horror title. Announced jointly by both, Dead Island 2 will be given showcase which is slated for December 6 at 12:00 PM PST. The presentation will take place on their official YouTube channel which is already set up as a special premiere event with the respective time and date accordingly. The showcase will mostly pertain to “Action, Gore, and Zombies” all of which make up the core experience of Dead Island.
Unfortunately, neither the publisher or the developer delved into what we can expect other than the three aforementioned words in the tagline. Thankfully, those three words do a lot of work by themselves, as the main experience pertains to action, gore, and of course the ever present zombies. If anything, this will hopefully alleviate any worries that fans might have after the title was delayed from the initial date of February 3, 2023 until April 28, 2023. Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver initially revealed this showcase back when the delay was announced, and they reiterate the date here as well.
The development of Dead Island 2 has been well documented, and is one of the most infamous “development hell” titles in video game history. The game was initially revealed in 2014 at Gamescom as follow up to the 2011 Dead Island, which at that point had been released over two console generations ago. Then in 2016, the development studio changed hands as Yaeger Development was dropped and Sumo Digital was tapped as the new developer. Further delays ensued, and in 2019, after being acquired by THQ Nordic, now known as Embracer Group, it was announced that Dead Island 2 would be developed by Dambuster Studios, which is an internal studio of publisher Deep Silver.
Either way you extrapolate it, the title has come a long way, and we’re almost at the finish line, if they don’t move it any more.