Life’s been hard for the Dead Island franchise. Starting out as buggy, yet fun zombie RPG helmed by Techland; then after the lackluster Dead Island: Riptide publisher Deep Silver handed the upcoming Dead Island 2 off to Yager, of Spec Ops: The Line fame. Then on July 15 Yager left the project due to creative differences. There was also the ill-fated MOBA Dead Island Epidemic that came and went.
Since then the fate of Dead Island 2 has been unknown. Now thanks to MCV we now know that Sumo Digital will taking over development of the game.
MCV spoke to Dr Klemens Kundratitz CEO of Koch Media, the company who owns Deep Silver, who had this to say about the decision.
Sumo showed so much understanding of the brand, had creative ideas and an excellent, vision that was aligned with our own. It just made perfect sense for us to move the project to them.
Sumo Digital COO Paul Porter also commented on the announcement saying:
It’s an honor to be charged with the evolution of such an important franchise in Deep Silver’s catalog. We’re looking forward to exceeding fan expectation with an ambitious design that we’re confident will take bone-crunching, visceral, zombie action to a whole new level.
Sumo Digital has previously worked on titles like Disney Infinity 3.0, Little Big Planet 3, Forza Horizon 2, and is currently working on the new Crackdown for the Xbox One.
While there was no new new on the game Kundratitz said that they would share more info when they are able.
We will reveal more details at a later stage, but for now I’d like to say that we are obviously super excited about the progress that we are making with them.
It’s at least good to know that the series isn’t dead, well, no more than usual.
While everyone waits for more news, why not read about Deep Silver’s other Dead Island title, Dead Island: Retro Rampage or take look at what a Yager developed Dead Island 2 would look like with a gameplay trailer.