New Gameplay Footage and a Release Date of 2023 Have Revived Dead Island 2!

By Phoebe Uren On Aug 30, 2022

The survival horror action role-playing game Dead Island 2 has been in development for a long time, but it finally has a release date.

Dead Island was a surprise hit for publisher Deep Silver when it came out in 2011. This was mostly because of an amazing trailer that didn’t really match the tone of the game at all.

After selling more than five million copies, a sequel was announced in 2014, but we still don’t have it. Recently, a playable gameplay demo from five years ago was leaked onto the web so fans could see what could have been (or still could be). Xbox Series X and PS5, which are part of the next generation of games, will give the zombie title a lot of great chances. So, what’s up with it? What do we know?

Dead Island 2’s Makers

Dambuster Studios, which is based in Nottingham, is now working on Dead Island 2. But they are the fourth team to work on the project, which has gone through many changes.

Techland, the company that made the first game, was supposed to come back, but instead, they chose to work on the Dying Light games. Yager Development was hired around 2012, but Sumo Digital took its place in 2015.

Finally, in 2019, it was announced that Dambuster, an internal studio at publisher Deep Silver, would be taking over. Reports say that the new team has put things back on track and that work on Dead Island 2 is going well.

Dead Island 2’s Location

The first game took place on the made-up island of Banoi. Dead Island 2 will be set in an open-world version of California, with most of the action happening in Los Angeles.

MUST READ: Good Omens Season 2 Release Date: When is the Premiere?

Players can expect to go to well-known places like the beaches of Venice or the posh streets of Bel Air that are full of zombies.

Dead Island 2’s Gameplay

Dead Island 2 has the same first-person melee combat as the first game, but it puts more of an emphasis on gore. The team said on the PlayStation blog that they have made their own gore technology to make every hack and slash as satisfying as possible.

This should go well with the hard-hitting melee weapons and powerful guns you already have. The developers said their goal was to give the player power instead of making them feel helpless. They wanted the player to charge into battle instead of sneaking around it.

Crafting was a big part of Dead Island and its DLC, so you can expect the sequel to have even more weird and wonderful weapons to use against hordes of zombies. The Rage Mode system will also be back, giving players a power boost for killing enemies.

The Dead Island 2 Trailers

Aside from the now-iconic E3 2014 zombie transformation scene, which you can see below, the Dead Island 2 trailers were pretty quiet for a long time.

But at Gamescom 2022, Deep Silver and Dambuster Studios showed us a new reveal trailer and some brand new, up-to-date gameplay footage.

Let’s look at how things have changed over time. First, here is the trailer for the Dead Island E3 2014 announcement to help you remember.

Next is the new Dead Island 2 reveal trailer, which was shown at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022.

Here’s the Dead Island 2 gameplay trailer, which should give you an idea of what to expect from the game when it comes out in 2023.

When is Dead Island 2 Going to Be Out?

On February 3, 2023, Dead Island 2 will come out. At the game’s re-reveal at Gamescom Opening Night 2022, where we got our first look at Dead Island 2 gameplay, that was confirmed. So, there isn’t really too long to wait.

Based on what Tom Henderson leaked, Dead Island 2 was thought to come out on February 23, 2023. That was the date from the Amazon listing he sent us, and it was the best guess we had before it came out.

The game was first made by Yager, the team behind the excellent Spec Ops The Line. Since then, it has been worked on by Sumo Digital and Dambuster Studios.