Dead Island 2 has been delayed more than most games, but publisher Deep Silver and developer Dambuster Studios are making up for the lost time by moving its release date up by one week. Dead Island 2 will now launch on April 21, 2023, a full seven days earlier than its previous April 28 release date. While Deep Silver didn’t share a specific reason as to why the release date was changed, it’s likely that it has to do with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor having its release date moved to April 28 recently.
This more positive change to the schedule was revealed on social media and coincides with the news that Dead Island 2 has gone gold. With most major behind-the-scenes work completed, Dambuster posted a cheeky video poking fun at those who have had to wait.
You asked for it, you got it. Dead Island 2 went gold and it's coming out a week early.
See you in HELL-A on April 21, 2023.#DeadIsland #SeeYouInHELLA pic.twitter.com/8Gu28bIcUS— Dead Island (@deadislandgame) February 13, 2023
Dead Island 2 was revealed nearly nine years ago in June 2014. If you couldn’t already tell from the wait, it spent those years in development hell as fans were largely left in the dark. We don’t know much about what went on behind the scenes, but we do know that it has switched developers more than once. Spec Ops: The Line studio Yager Development was first pinned to handle the sequel before work was handed to Sackboy: A Big Adventure developer Sumo Digital in 2016. The Homefront: The Revolution crew at Dambuster finally took the reins in 2019, and though the studio will finally deliver this April, it’s got nearly a decade of anticipation to live up to.
It’ll be hard for Dead Island 2 to successfully deliver after so much waiting, but at least the wait got a bit shorter after the news from today. Look forward to it a week earlier when it comes to PC via the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S in April. Until then, read up on how Dambuster flexed its creative muscles by integrating Alexa functionality in its zombie-bashing combat.
