Dead Island 2, the forthcoming third major addition in the Dead Island series, is an action role-playing survival video game. Dead Island 2 continues the horrific story of 2011 video game Dead Island as the Dead Island 2 plot is set a few months after the events of Dead Island and Escape Dead Island. Dead Island 2 story is based in various locations in California while previous game versions took place on different islands. Sumo Digital are the developers of Dead Island 2 while Deep Silver are the game publishers. Originally, Dead Island was developed by Yager Development but in March 2016 Sumo Digital took over it. The upcoming Dead Island 2 will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.
Dead Island 2 Gameplay
Dead Island 2 has a new open world where players can move and explore their virtual world surroundings without restrictions. Dead Island 2 set is based in three locations: San Francisco, Los Angeles and California. The upcoming game set is unique because in Dead Island, predecessor of the game, the action took place only on the island of Banoi off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Dead Island 2 will also have some upgrades in its mechanics. Moreover, it will also contain few components from its ancestors: the crafting system and the Rage system that provides player with a brief boost.
Development of Dead Island 2
Dead Island 2 was first agreed to be developed by Techland. But soon it was clear that the company decided to focus on developing another game – Dying Light with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. After that Dead Island 2 publisher Deep Silver started looking for another company to develop the upcoming game and in the summer of 2012, Yager Development pitched the game to Deep Silver and got signed. Dead Island 2 is expected to be more dynamic, as it was stated in Sony’s E3 2014media briefing. Dead Island 2 was first scheduled to be released in spring 2015 but it has been postponed to 2016.
At annual Gamescom event in 2014, Dead Island 2 publishers Deep Silver presented gameplay footage from the early form of the upcoming game. As we can see from the demonstrated footage, the Dead Island 2 game is based in various locations in California. It includes such well-known places as iconic Hollywood, Santa Monica Pier and some locations in San Francisco. Furthermore, only a part of weapon adjustments and newly added zombies were presented at the event. Moreover, Dead Island 2 publishers Deep Silver also announced that there will be 4 playable characters in the upcoming game. However, only two of them were presented at the Gamescom Demo. The game is expected to have eight-player cooperative multiplayer as well.
It was announced in July 2015 that Yager, the team who was set to develop the game, was eliminated from the Dead Island 2 development. The reason for such decision was, regarding the managing director of Yager Development, Timo Ullmann, that “Yager and Deep Silver’s respective visions of the project fell out of alignment”. That led to the fact that in July 2015 game’s independent development team, Yager Productions GmbH, registered bankruptcy. New team for Dead Island 2 development, UK-based studio Sumo Digital was presented as the new Dead Island 2 game development team. Such news was announced on 9 March, 2016.