It looks like one of gaming’s most infamous development hell titles might actually have a window for a release. According to a report from Video Games Chronicle, the IP’s parent company, Embracer Group, had their recent earnings call which was followed by a Q&A session. Dead Island 2 was brought up as a subject to which CEO Lars Wingefors gave a subtle hint that the title might end up launching in early 2023. Should this end up being the case, then it will easily be one of the longest wait times from an announcement to an actual release for a project.
The actual question for Dead Island 2 was asked by the Q&A host, Oscar Erixon, who inquired whether the title would release sometime during Embracer Group’s 2023 fiscal year. Wingfors, knowing that the question had some bait to it, did not give a direct answer, instead opting to offer a small hint. “I can’t talk about Dead Island 2 because it’s not announced, as such, from the publisher, but we have just talked about, we have one unannounced triple A title that you think is Dead Island 2. It’s hard for me to comment further on that. But I’m excited about unannounced titles.”
The Q&A moved on at that point but the message was clear, Dead Island 2 not only still exists, but may also have a potential release time frame. It also helps that the project still has not been canceled by either Embracer Group or the main publisher Deep Silver. While this might not seem like much, fans of the series will more than likely be very excited by this as there hasn’t really been any concrete information regarding Dead Island 2 since 2014 when an official gameplay trailer was released at Gamescom. In fact, the most recent news in any form for the title was in 2020 when an incomplete and playable build was leaked. With Wingfors teasing us like this, we can only hope that they’ll have some good news for us in the coming months.