Dead Island 2 was announced almost 7 years ago, and we have yet to see it in any official capacity. It’s announcement trailer was a fun time, but clearly something has gone amiss with the development, as it’s switched developers multiple times now, with the most recent one on it being Dambusters Studios. But the publisher is insistent that the game is still coming despite all this trouble, but now it seems even more has potentially changed.
As pointed out thanks to Twitter user MauroNL, according to a new job listing from Dambusters, they are working on an “AAA title” listed as “Next Gen Consoles and PC platforms,” specifically a Producer role. While Dead Island 2 is not specifically mentioned there, it’s the only game referenced in other listings, and the only game the studio is known to have in active development.
Job listings in the not too distant past mentioned past and future consoles, so the dropping of the past part seems to show that the game will now target only the new consoles. Mauro is just a tad off here, though, as he says the game was announced in 2016. It was actually announced in 2014. It gained its second developer, Sumo Digital, in 2016.
Nothing has been officially said about it either way, but considering how a new developer started in 2019, it’s entirely possible that development restarted so, granting this thing comes out, it’s possible we won’t see it until 2022-2023. So it being only for the new consoles would make some sense.
"Experience with DXR and compute are a must, as you will be heavily involved in raising our visual bar on high-end platforms using the latest rendering technologies." Dead Island 2 is being built using Unreal Engine 4. Dambuster took over development in August 2019.
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— MauroNL (@MauroNL3) March 1, 2021
Originally announced in 2016 for PS4, XB1 and PC the game had a troubled development cycle, having switched developers 3 times. Publisher Deep Silver recently reiterated the game is still very much coming. Source:https://t.co/GkFwBlLgib
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— MauroNL (@MauroNL3) March 1, 2021
