The Final Dead Island 2 Version Was Created Almost From Scratch

The final version of Dead Island 2, a long-awaited action RPG developed by Dambuster Studios, was finally revealed to the public. During this year's Gamescom Opening Night Live, the developers unveiled two brand new trailers and announced the release date which will take place on February 3, 2023.

The first news that the Dead Island sequel was in development appeared about eight years ago – at that time the German studio Yager Development was responsible for the game. It later was taken over by Sumo Digital but eventually, the studio was also removed from the project and replaced by Dambuster. However, almost nothing has been known about the game since then. And now, following the game's appearance at Gamescom, developers finally shared some more details on the project.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Dambuster's game director David Stenton and creative director James Worral shared that the studio started the production of the game almost from scratch so apparently almost nothing from Yager's original vision remained in the project.

"To be honest Dead Island 2 has almost been almost a complete fresh start – Homefront was on CryEngine and this is on UE4, we spent a lot of time on Dead Island to develop our gore tech and a lot of the tools are completely new with Dead Island," Stenton said. "Obviously we've been able to keep personnel and staff and talent, but in terms of techniques it's a fresh start."

According to the developers, Dead Island 2 is a standalone game, almost unrelated to the original. However, they noted that the two games share a common universe and fans may have even noticed a character from the first game.

Speaking of the game's open world, the developers shared that Dead Island 2 will include several areas – some of them are "expansive" and some are "a bit smaller" – that will be unlocked according to the story progression. They also noted that there'll be various side quests that take place within different districts.

Stenton and Worral also spoke about the "gore tech" they've implemented in the game saying that while creating it, they have thought of a number of possibilities for the destruction of anatomically correct bodies. They shared that they've worked on this technology for years as their aim is to make Dead Island 2 "absolutely the goriest game out there."

You can find the full interview with David Stenton and James Worral here. Also, don't forget to join our Reddit page and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.