Dead Island 2 is Still in Development, Could Release in 2023
While the gaming world has just seen a Techland-developed zombie game release in recent weeks with Dying Light 2, it appears their original open-world survival horror entry could finally be receiving its long-awaited sequel in the near future.
During parent company Embracer Group's recent Q3 FY2021/22 report, Dead Island 2 was name-dropped in multiple instances, indicating that the title is still on the way despite over a decade having passed since the release of the first game.
Dead Island 2 is Still in Development, Could Release in 2023
Dead Island 2 has notoriously had a bit of a rough going with its development, having been announced in 2014 and going through several release date delays and development studio baton hand-offs since then.
With Dambuster Studios seemingly having been able to work on the title without issues since August 2019, however, it appears Dead Island 2 is inching closer and closer to the finish line.
In addition to appearing in Embracer's Q3 report as an "announced release," as well as on the Koch Media slide of the financial presentation alongside the Saints Row reboot, Payday 3, Shadow Warrior 3 and Crossfire Legion, Dead Island 2 was hinted at by CEO Lars Wingefors during the Q&A section of the presentation.
"People have sort of written off [Dead Island 2]," Q&A host and Carnegie equity research analyst Oscar Erixon said, "not knowing if it's still alive. But it very clearly is. I, at least, expect the release this financial year — sorry, next financial year, I should say. Is that reasonable? What can we expect from the title? It's been in development for probably ten years or so."
Noting that the release date of Dead Island 2 has yet to be announced by Deep Silver, Wingefors reasonably declined to answer the question directly but did hint that Erixon was seemingly on the right track.
"I can't talk about Dead Island 2 because it's not announced," Wingefors said, "from the publisher, but we have just talked about — we have one unannounced AAA title that you think is Dead Island 2. It's hard for me to comment further on that. But I'm excited about unannounced titles."
Getting Wingefors' drift, Erixon joked to the nervous laughter of the CEO, "Great. I'm excited you're excited."
Embracer's 2023 fiscal year closes on March 31, 2023.