Six years after announcement, and we’re nonetheless no nearer to realizing when Dead Island 2 will shamble our approach. Somewhat unexpectedly, although, that hasn’t stopped a choose few from getting their palms on a playable construct of the factor. Sort of. This week, a 2015 construct of Dead Island 2 emerged on-line, with movies and screenshots revealed Yager’s long-buried imaginative and prescient of a multiplayer blood-in-the-sun sequel.
Our buds at Eurogamer report that the five-year-old construct of Dead Island 2 allegedly surfaced out of web garbage can 4Chan. The outlet has since verified that the copy is legit, a declare strengthened by EA Dice game designer (and former Yager worker) Jan David Hassel on Twitter.
As Hassel alludes, this construct of Dead Island 2 is sourced from shortly earlier than Yager ceased work on the game in 2015. The devs parted ways with publishers Deep Silver later that yr, who handed growth over to Sumo Digital. Then, final yr, work shifted palms as soon as once more – this time to Homefront: The Revolution devs Dambuster Studios.
So, obvs, the model of Dead Island 2 kicking across the web proper now most likely bears little or no resemblance to the game because it exists proper now, tucked away someplace on Dambuster’s inner drives. But from screenshots and clips circulating Twitter, it’s certainly the identical sun-soaked bloodbath our Graham poked at all the way back in 2014 – albeit with loads of placeholder property and a heaping dose of in-development jank.
Some extra photographs as a result of that is blowing up; and folks can not seem to discover it. pic.twitter.com/DfrssSeNw5
— Jason Harrdington (@JHarrdington) June 5, 2020
Yager’s model of Dead Island 2 would have options eight-player co-op throughout a sun-dabbled Californian open world. It would’ve featured the identical loot-grabbing talent tree guff as the primary, however Yager hoped to easy out a few of the first game’s uneven (typically offensively gross) tone. Fair play, coming from the parents who’d beforehand developed Spec Ops: The Line.
Not that Dead Island 2 would’ve had you speaking to the monsters, thoughts – theirs was very a lot nonetheless a game about lopping off heads with electro-charged axes held akimbo.
Five years after Yager moved on, Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz insisted to GamesIndustry.biz that Dead Island 2 remains to be coming – even when we nonetheless don’t know when. “It’s a great story to tell everyone that it’s on its third studio, but we like to be judged on the end result and we’re really confident that when it comes out it’s going to be a kick-ass zombie game,” mentioned Kundratitz. “We’ll certainly give it all our power.”
Techland – the parents wot made the primary Dead Island – won’t be concerned on this long-troubled sequel, however they’re having just a few points getting their very own zombie follow-up out the door. Dying Light 2 was delayed indefinitely from its planned Spring 2020 release earlier this yr, although the devs insist the game remains to be “in good shape”.
