Dead Island ships over 1 million in first week, 360 patch live, first DLC may be delayed in favor of more patches

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Deep Silver wants to make sure its million-plus fans are happy and glitch-free

Opinions of Dead Island are all over the place, with some calling it great, others calling it terrible, and the rest calling it the greatest terrible game of all time. Those mixed impressions haven’t hurt the game’s sales, however, as Deep Silver has confirmed that Dead Island has shipped over 1 million copies in its first week. Geoff Mulligan, Chief Operating Officer at Deep Silver, commented that the company is thrilled at the retail reception, while assuring fans that it’s working to restock shelves as quickly as possible.

But even though fans and haters may disagree on the game’s overall quality, they agree on one, important thing: Dead Island is buggy. Very, very buggy. Complaints range from small-scale problems, like the occasional graphical glitch and floating item, to more serious concerns, including faulty missions and AI that are borderline game-breaking. Deep Silver wants to assure its fans that these concerns have not fallen on deaf ears. There was a day-one patch to fix some issues, and another has been made available just yesterday for the Xbox 360 to address these and other glitches. The game’s official Twitter page reports that “Updates include improvements to matchmaking, AI, quest and escort fixes, visual glitch fixes and a ton more.” The patch has not yet been made available for PlayStation 3 or PC players, but the developers have promised that they’re coming. For PS3 owners currently having issues with game saves, they offer a temporary solution on their Facebook page, too.

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They’re very serious about these updates, too. Deep Silver confirmed with Kotaku that the updates and bug squashes take a precedent over the pre-planned downloadable content. “There is some awesome DLC content planned for Dead Island, but first we have to put all our focus on the base game experience,” it said. It’s sad that this sort of thing is even news – it should be a given that developers will fix their broken games before asking for more money, but it’s good to see Deep Silver do Dead Island fans right before soliciting them for post-launch extras.

Sept 15, 2011

Hollander Cooper
Hollander Cooper
Former Features Editor at GamesRadar+

Hollander Cooper was the Lead Features Editor of GamesRadar+ between 2011 and 2014. After that lengthy stint managing GR's editorial calendar he moved behind the curtain and into the video game industry itself, working as social media manager for EA and as a communications lead at Riot Games. Hollander is currently stationed at Apple as an organic social lead for the App Store and Apple Arcade.