After eight years of development, Deep Silver recently revealed that Dead Island 2 would not only release but would do so one week earlier than anticipated. Given that Dead Island 2 underwent a turbulent development, this statement is all the more unexpected. The game changed developers frequently before finding a steady one in 2019 with Dambuster, a studio that is housed within publisher Deep Silver.
The terrible responsibility of steering a game that was never able to find its feet fell to Dambuster. Questions about what consumers can anticipate in terms of the overall content and quality of the game start to emerge given the lengthy development cycle and impending release date.
One is left to question if the game will feel old upon release or if there are even any fans of the franchise left to care about it given that its life cycle started on the previous console generation and its predecessor was released almost ten years ago. When open worlds were the norm in 2014, just as open-world fatigue was starting to set in, Dead Island 2’s development got underway.
Also present in the original Dead Island were vehicles, light crafting, upgrade trees, and class customization in many of the era’s open-world games. Such game concepts have subsequently been developed to the point where anything less than a completely original interpretation of any concept will make it difficult for Dead Island to stand out in a market that is still flooded with zombie games and open-world games.
When the first trailer for the original Dead Island appeared online, it instantly became a hit. Dead Island had the attention of the entire gaming industry focused on it despite having no gameplay or any indication of what the game was other than its name and the promise of zombies.
The game, sadly, received a mixed response upon release and was rapidly forgotten about, leaving the hype surrounding the video as the main selling point of the product.
Due to the low level of interest in the series in 2015 and its near-complete disappearance in 2023, Dead Island 2 is currently in a difficult situation. Several media outlets and customers expressed their disbelief that the game even exists. Others openly acknowledged that they had completely forgotten about not only Dead Island 2, but the entire series, relegating it to the status of a footnote for the seventh console generation.
The aforementioned tweet indicating the earlier release date added to the general lack of interest in Dead Island. Dead Island 2 has spent its entire life in a precarious position. It didn’t help that the game was a sequel to an ambitious but seriously problematic open-world zombie role-playing game that fell short of the promise of its legendary trailer.
After the first announcement in 2014, the game hopped from development to developer for the following eight years, railroading any residual fans of the series. The game then vanished from recollection before suddenly resurfacing in 2023 with the announcement that it not only existed but would also be launched in two months.
