Dead Island 2 still lives

Publisher Deep Silver has insisted that development on Dead Island 2 is still ongoing.

The last we heard from the game was over a year ago when MCV revealed that UK studio Sumo Digital had been handed development duties.

"Dead Island 2 is in development at Sumo Digital, and we are excited by the progress the team are making with Deep Silver’s most successful IP,” Deep Silver told Eurogamer. When we are ready to share more information, we will."

The site added that it had heard rumours that the game had once again hit development trouble.

The zombie sequel had once been in development at Yager, but Deep Silver dropped the studio in July 2015.

With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve. After careful consideration, today we announce the decision to part ways with development partner Yager,” the publisher said. We will continue working towards bringing our vision of Dead Island 2 to life, and we will share further information at a later stage.”

Yager MD Timo Ullmann later said of the split:"Our team is made of the best creative minds and tech specialists, who all share a common identity. The team worked with enthusiasm to take Dead Island 2 to a new level of quality. However, Yager and Deep Silver’s respective visions of the project fell out of alignment, which led to the decision that has been made."

In March 2016, Sumo was revealed as the new developer.

Sumo showed so much understanding of the brand, had creative ideas and an excellent, vision that was aligned with our own,” Koch Media CEO Dr Klemens Kundratitz told MCV. It just made perfect sense for us to move the project to them. We will reveal more details at a later stage, but for now I’d like to say that we are obviously super excited about the progress that we are making with them.”

Sumo COO Paul Porter added:It’s an honour to be charged with the evolution of such an important franchise in Deep Silver’s catalogue. We’re looking forward to exceeding fan expectation with an ambitious design that we’re confident will take bone-crunching, visceral, zombie action to a whole new level.”