2014 Dead Island 2 'Would Have Killed The Franchise' Says Former Exec — 'It Had Nothing To Do With What Made The Original Really Fun'

A erstwhile caput of communications astatine Dead Island 2 steadfast Deep Silver has opened up astir the "eight-year merchandise delay" Dead Island 2 endured aft aboriginal playtests reported "horrific feedback."

At the extremity of a Develop:Brighton speech arsenic reported by GamesIndustry.biz, Martin Wein — present astatine GameFlex Consultants — talked candidly astir the sequel's troubled development, and however it was decided astatine a large milestone gathering with then-developer, Yager, that the crippled arsenic it was past "sucked."

Dead Island 2 was revealed astatine E3 2014 but soon went quiescent earlier "mutual differences" separated Yager from Deep Silver. It was past moved to Sumo Digital earlier being shifted again successful 2019 to its last location of Dambuster Studios. A caller trailer and gameplay video was released connected December 6, 2022, during a Dead Island 2 Showcase that announced it was delayed erstwhile again, slipping 12 weeks to April 2023. It was the archetypal due look astatine the crippled fans had since it was re-revealed aft years of troubled improvement successful August 2022.

"I was moving connected that with the originative team, and we were mightily arrogant of that [trailer]," Wein said. "But then, astir 3 to 4 weeks later, we had a large milestone with the improvement workplace that was successful complaint astatine that time. And boy, that crippled sucked.

"It had thing to bash with what [made] the archetypal Dead Island [...] truly fun. So we commissioned a play trial and got horrific feedback. And we sat down with the improvement squad and said, 'Okay, what's the people of action?' And they said, 'Yeah, permission it with us.'"

But astatine the adjacent touch-point, Wein said small had changed, with playtest feedback indicating the sequel was "not fun, not engaging, [and] does not consciousness similar the Dead Island that I played."

"So astatine the extremity of the day, we had to instrumentality the crippled distant from that outer developer, find a caller studio, and that enactment the crippled connected a travel of… well, it was expected to motorboat successful 2015. When did it travel out? 2023?

"Sometimes you person to marque hard decisions," Wein added. "Because we could have, astatine that point, enactment retired a sh*t game. It mightiness person made immoderate money, but it would person killed the franchise.

"I cannot truly talk to the speech betwixt the accumulation squad and the improvement spouse arsenic I was not portion of those, but arsenic the developer wanted to prosecute their imaginativeness alternatively than travel subordinate feedback, the eventual determination was made to portion ways."

When it did yet merchandise successful 2023, IGN's Dead Island 2's reappraisal returned a 7/10. We said: "Dead Island 2 is simply a hilarious gore-fest and a competent zombie-slaying adventure, but lacks creativity extracurricular of its large consciousness of humor."

Vikki Blake is simply a newsman for IGN, arsenic good arsenic a critic, columnist, and advisor with 15+ years acquisition moving with immoderate of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's besides a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her astatine BlueSky.