Eight years after its reveal, Dead Island 2 may finally see the light of day

Eight years after its reveal, the long-awaited Dead Island 2 may finally release. The news came out of a Q&A segment of a recent earnings call by publisher Deep Silver and  parent company Embrace Group, with the company’s CEO hinting that Dead Island 2 will likely release during the company’s next fiscal year. For those of you who aren’t accountants, the fiscal year ends on March 21st 2023.

The answer came as part of a slightly cryptic investor Q&A exchange, where a question was asked about the missing in action zombie sequel.

“It very clearly is [still alive]," the Q&A host said, referring to Dead Island 2, before continuing “and I at least expect the release...next financial year..” 

“So, is that reasonable, and what can we expect from a title that has been in development for probably 10 years or so?” added the host.

 “I can’t talk about Dead Island 2 because it’s not announced as such from the publisher,” Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors replied:  “But we have just talked about [that] we have one unannounced AAA title… that you think is Dead Island 2, so it’s hard for me to comment further on that. But I am excited about unannounced titles,”

While this is far from an official confirmation, it spells surprisingly good news for a game that many assumed would never see the light of day. Dead Island 2 was first announced in 2014. After debuting with an eye-catching trailer, no further footage of the game has been seen. The zombie sequel was originally being developer by Spec Ops: The Line creators Yager, before later being handed to Sumo Digital. Unfortunately, it seems Sumo also ran into troubles with the title, with development of the game being handed over a third time, to Homefront: The Revolution creators, Dambuster in 2019.

This vague conversation isn’t the only bit of positive Dead Island 2 news that’s being doing the rounds recently. Industry insider Tom Henderson last week reported that the game is in good shape, stating in a YouTube video that “A release date is expected to be somewhere in Q4 2022, possibly leading up to next year if there are any problems with the development cycle.”

Henderson even teased some details of Dead Island 2’s plot: “You’re on a plane and there’s a zombie outbreak on a plane… eventually the plane crashes into Hollywood, you survive and it’s then your job to survive on the ground.”

Dead Island 2 being brought back from the dead feels fitting, really. Keep it locked to Gamesradar for more news on the troubled zombie RPG as we get it.