The last time we here at Eurogamer previewed Dead Island 2 was way back in 2014 when I went hands on with a playable demo at Gamescom.
Dead Island 2Publisher: Deep SilverDeveloper: Dambuster StudiosPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: 3rd February 2023
At that time the game was being developed by Yager Development, but when that studio was removed from the project in 2015, Sumo Digital took over and attempted to pick up the pieces. Sumo’s involvement was short lived though and it was also taken off development sometime around 2019.
After that, Dambuster Studios took up the reins and since then all has been worringly quiet. I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who thought that this troubled sequel was dead in the water but surprise, surprise, not only has Dead Island 2 risen from the grave in true zombie fashion, but it also has an actual, set in stone release date.
In a bid to prove once and for all that Dead Island 2 was still (un)alive and kicking, publisher Deep Silver invited us to London to go hands-on with a 20 minute demo of the game. While there we also spoke to David Stenton [game director, been at Dambusters 8 years] and James Worral [creative director, been at Dambusters 4 years] about their new and improved version of Dead Island 2.
How much of Yager’s original vision remains in the project?
David Stenton: To be honest Dead Island 2 has almost been almost a complete fresh start – Homefront was on CryEngine and this is on UE4, we spent a lot of time on Dead Island to develop our gore tech and a lot of the tools are completely new with Dead Island. Obviously we’ve been able to keep personnel and staff and talent, but in terms of techniques it’s a fresh start.
Is there a connection narratively to the first Dead Island?
James Worrall: It follows on, yeah, but we do a lot of brand new world building. So there’s a bit of a clean slate, but it follows on in the timeline, and you might have spotted a character from the first game.