Dead Island 2 – Possible release in 2022?

Even after more than 8 years, Dead Island 2 is still in active development.

Maybe it really is time for the game’s release in 2022 – at least if you believe the industry insider Tom Henderson, who now reports in a video.

New information about Dead Island 2

In the video, Henderson discusses the current state of the game, which he talked about with people involved in the project, and describes it as good and advanced.
Theoretically, it could even be announced with a gameplay trailer in the near future.

The insider considers a release date for the game at the end of 2022 (Q4) or in the first quarter of 2023 to be quite realistic.

He also gives new information about the game’s scenario. According to this, we will experience the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse on board a plane, which will then crash in the famous Hollywood.

When the game was first announced, it was still said that Dead Island 2 would start in a quarantine station in California.

At least as far as the possible release is concerned, there are hints that Henderson’s information might be credible.
When asked about this in a Q&A, Lars Wingefors, CEO of Embracer (the parent company of THQ Nordic & Deep Silver), gave an indirect but in context quite clear statement that seems to confirm this.

I can’t talk about Dead Island 2 because it’s not announced, as such, from the publisher, but we have just talked about—we have one unannounced triple-A title that you think is Dead Island 2.

It’s hard for me to comment further on that. But I’m excited about unannounced titles.

(After that, the CEO gave the interviewer a meaningful look).

A look back at the development

The Dead Island franchise was originally developed in 2011 under the auspices of Techland. However, the developer then dropped the title in favor of Dying Light and recently released its sequel, Dying Light 2: Stay Human.

Dead Island 2 then migrated first to Yaeger Development, and later to developer Sumo Digital. In 2019, it was then announced that Deep Silver’s in-house studio Dambuster is now working on the game.

In 2020, a leaked version of the game surfaced, whose authenticity is now considered proven.
However, it is probably an early developer version from 2015.

The game was originally announced back in 2014 with the cinematic trailer embedded below.