Gabriel Stanford-ReisingerTo say Dead Island 2 had a storied development would be a bit of an understatement. Finally, though, fans will get to get their hands on the zombie survival adventure later this week and, with that, put an end to the nearly decade-long wait that fans had to endure.
Fans got the announcement during E3 2014, complete with showcasing gameplay, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows when Techland, which was initially developing it, moved on to a new project, Dying Light. It was passed onto a new studio, and then that studio passed it on, and so on. It wasn’t until Deep Silver took it into its own hands and gave it to Dambuster Studios, an internal development team.
Things looked up from there, and during Gamescom 2022, the studio re-revealed Dead Island 2. Alongside re-revealing it, a goal of February 3, 2023, was announced. This obviously didn’t pan out, and the game was delayed until April 28. Then, in February, Deep Silver and Dambuster announced the game would release on April 21 rather than the 28.
In case you need more convincing, they just dropped its launch trailer.