Today, Deep Silver and THQ Nordic announced that Dambuster Studios has taken over the Dead Island franchise and is now leading development on Dead Island 2, and will make any future releases in the series if there are any more after Dead Island 2, which, at this point, may never actually release. The news came during THQ Nordic’s latest earnings call, and has fans really worried about the game, even more so than before, which is hard to do, because not many had any hope for the game after developer switches and multiple set-backs.
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As you may remember, Dead Island 2 was announced all the way back in 2014 at E3. At the time, it was in development under Yager Development, the team perhaps best-known for the terrific Spec Ops: The Line. However, in July 2015 the studio was dropped from the project, which was then put on ice. Then in March 2016, it was confirmed Sumo Digital was taking over, a team with a somewhat okay track record, though far from the best studio around. This year it put out Team Sonic Racing and Crackdown 3. While the former was received somewhat warmly, the latter bombed a bit. In other words, it wasn’t the most promising sign for the game’s quality.
However, Dead Island fans don’t have to worry about that anymore, because the studio is no longer on the game. Rather Dambuster Studios is. This is the third developer now on the project, and fans are starting to get really worried. Why? Because Dambuster Studios is a one game studio that has only put out Homefront: The Revolution, one of 2015’s worst games that perhaps killed the Homefront series. In other words, it’s not exactly the name you want to see attached to a project that’s already had a boatload of problems.
I wonโt be surprised if dead island 2 takes over 20 goddamn years to come out and then suck ass like duke Newcomb forever
โ ๐ธโ Dex? (@ACWilliams818) August 14, 2019
I was already worried about Dead Island 2 after the delays and the underwhelming first game, but now Dambuster taking charge is very worrying. Homefront The Revolution was awful.
โ Medicus Piper (@MedicusPiper) August 14, 2019
I’m 50/50 on Dead Island 2 still happening, I’m hoping that it does because I love the franchise but it’s been so long. And I don’t trust the devs behind it, they made Homefront: The Revolution ๐ฌ
โ Puppet (@RealGhostPuppet) August 14, 2019
Dead Island 2 going from being developed by the ‘Spec Ops: the Line’ guys
to now being developed by the ‘Homefront: The Revolution’ guys is like
Bruh
โ the coochie is hangry (@critical_kitkat) August 14, 2019
me: oh so dambuster studios are the ones developing dead island 2 now. what games did they make?
me, shortly after discovering they were the developers of homefront the revolution pic.twitter.com/EGFeeQN3Ky
โ GO BROLY! GO! GO! ๐ฅ (@staroftherogue) August 14, 2019
Every part of this headline screams “GOTY” https://t.co/BFH5xlgbAF
โ Suriel (@SurielVazquez) August 14, 2019
Damnbuster are the guys who made Homefront: The Revolution… yeah might as well cancel Dead Island 2
โ Alex (@lordguy666) August 14, 2019
Dead Island 2 now being developed by Dambuster Studios, which has only made Homefront: The Revolution so far.
Might as well cancel that shit again.
โ DSP Archives (@DSPArchives) August 14, 2019
There’s no word when Dead Island 2 will release or what platforms it will release on.
