Dead Island 2 may finally escape development hell to release by early 2023.
What you need to know
- Dead Island 2 is the successor to 2011’s action-RPG title Dead Island, which enjoyed a sizeable following of players.
- Initially revealed in 2014, Dead Island 2 has since been in development hell with multiple delays and even full-blown developer changes.
- A recent report claimed that, despite community speculation, Dead Island 2 is alive and well and on its way to an upcoming release.
- On Thursday, the Q3 FY22 presentation for Embracer Group hinted that Dead Island 2 could arrive by Mar. 2023.
Dead Island 2 has weaved in and out of obscurity since its initial reveal all the way back in 2014. Thanks to frequent delays, lapses in communication, and massive shifts like changes in developers have led many players to consider Dead Island 2 as little more than a distant dream that will never come to fruition.
On Thursday, the combination of an industry insider report last week and Embracer Group’s Q3 FY22 financial report presentation (via VGC) raised the dead, so to speak, and breathed fresh life into Dead Island 2 by claiming development is progressing at a decent pace. Not only is Dead Island 2 well on its way to release, that release could arrive as soon as the end of 2022 or early 2023, according to the report.
Embracer Group, the parent company of Dead Island 2 publisher Deep Silver, mentioned the aforementioned title during its financial presentation. It also appeared in media alongside other upcoming games like Saints Row and Shadow Warrior 3. It was alluded to toward the end of the presentation that, not only is Dead Island 2 definitely still happening, it could arrive as soon as the end of Embracer Group’s next fiscal year, which ends Mar. 2023.
Fans have been waiting on Dead Island 2 for nearly a decade now, and many have lost hope entirely. Dead Island 2 has been plagued with slow and complicated development, and has completed changed developers twice since its development began. Now, Dead Island 2 is being handled by Deep Silver’s Dambuster Studios, best known for Homefront: The Revolution.
If all goes well, what could very well be one of the best Xbox games for zombie survival-horror fans could arrive within a year. Dead Island 2 in its current form is still technically “unannounced,” however, and Embracer Group did not explicitly confirm a release window. Still, this may provide a glimmer of hope to Dead Island fans eager to get their hands on the next installment in the series.