Deep Silver has confirmed that Dead Island 2 is still very much in development, despite the fact we haven’t heard anything on the game in well over a year.
Speaking in a statement issue to Eurogamer, a representative for the publisher commented, “Dead Island 2 is in development at Sumo Digital, and we are excited by the progress the team are making with Deep Silver’s most successful IP. When we are ready to share more information, we will."
Related – Dead Island 2 hands-on preview
Dead Island 2 has endured a problematic development cycle thus far. The zombie-killing sequel was originally announced during Sony’s E3 2014 press conference, with Spec Ops: The Line coders Yager at the helm, as original creators Techland had opted to focus on the undead-themed Dying Light instead. The game was then targeted for a summer 2015 launch and then delayed into 2016.
One year later, Deep Silver confirmed that Yager was no longer working on Dead Island 2, with the developer later commenting that their respective visions for the sequel ‘fell out of alignment.’ A new studio was later confirmed to be handling development duties, which in 2016 was confirmed to be Sumo Digital, the U.K.-based developer that worked on LittleBigPlanet 3.
Since then, Dead Island 2 news has been thin on the ground, although today’s confirmation that the project is still in the works should hopefully mean an update isn’t too far off. Perhaps we’ll hear something at E3 next month? Stay tuned.