Last week, rumors of the long-in-development sequel to Deep Silver’s zombie game Dead Island surfaced online, with industry insiders claiming that the game might finally get re-announced and released this year. Well, it seems Deep Silver’s parent company, Embracer Group, has hinted the same.
During an Embracer Group earnings presentation on Thursday, the Q&A host commented on some of the recent speculation regarding the game, and in an unofficial capacity, seemed to suggest that they believe the release to be in the next fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2023.
The host said (via VGC): “It very clearly is [still alive], and I at least expect the release this financial year, or sorry next financial year I should say. So, is that reasonable and what can we expect from a title that has been in development for probably 10 years or so?”
Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors responded to the question, saying, “I can’t talk about Dead Island 2 because it’s not announced as such from the publisher. 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.” He did confirm that he is excited about the other unannounced titles though.
While this does not confirm anything, it does give the impression that maybe Dead Rising 2 is finally reaching the finish line, after years of troubled development. The game was originally assigned to the Spec Ops: The Line studio Yaegar to develop after its announcement in 2014. The duties then got shifted and taken over by Sumo Digital, and after that, Dambuster took over developmental duties in 2019.
