‘Dead Island 2’ brings release date forward to avoid ‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’

Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver have brought forward the release of Dead Island 2 after confirming the highly-anticipated game has gone gold.

Dead Island 2 is the long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s action role-playing game Dead Island. The sequel was originally announced in 2014, with Dambuster taking over development in 2019.

Last November, the game was delayed to April 28 2023 to allow developers time “to make sure we can launch a game we’re proud to launch”.

Deep Silver has now confirmed that Dead Island 2 has gone gold, and the release date has been brought forward. “You asked for it, you got it. Dead Island 2 went gold and it’s coming out a week early,” said the tweet announcing the news.

“Zombie gore fest” Dead Island 2 will now be released on April 21 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and the Epic Games Store.

No reason was given for the shift in release dates, but earlier this month Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was delayed by six weeks in order to hit developer Respawn’s “quality bar”, meaning it was set for release on Dead Island 2’s original launch date, April 28.

Earlier this year, creative director James Worrall and lead narrative designer Khan revealed that Dead Island 2 is set ten years after the original and takes place in Los Angeles because “of the amazing eccentrics and self-confidence of the city.”

As well as teasing the “exciting” new skill tree, Khan explained that the level of gore gets too much “when it stops being funny and starts being disturbing.”

“We’ve worked really hard on making our gore hilariously over the top, so it stays funny,” she added.

“Dead Island 2 is a unique formula of horror, dark humour and over-the-top zombie-slaying, spanning an epic pulp adventure,” reads the official description.

In other news, CD Projekt Red has confirmed it is working to remove an “unintended” bug from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that gave several NPCs realistic genitalia.