Dead Island 2: Yager no longer developing game announces Deep Silver

Dead Island 2 screenshot — A screenshot from the Gamescom 2014 demo of Dead Island 2 Yager Development

Publisher Deep Silver has announced Yager Development is no longer developing Dead Island 2, in doing so revealing a game in more trouble than previously thought. No information regarding a new developer has been revealed.

In a statement, Deep Silver said: "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.

"We will continue working towards bringing our vision of Dead Island 2 to life, and we will share further information at a later stage."

The game was first revealed at E3 2014 and first demoed publicly at Gamescom 2014, where IBTimes UK spoke to Yager design director Jörg Friedrich and Carsten Lindner, senior producer at Deep Silver (at the time), about the game.

In April, an announcement revealed the game would be delayed until 2016, one that hinted at problems behind the scenes. This latest news only reveals those issues are worse than first feared.

In their statement regarding the delay, Deep Silver and Yager said:

We have always set ourselves a big goal for Dead Island 2: to create the sequel that takes Dead Island to the next level. A game that takes what our fans tell us they love about Dead Island – multiple different characters to play with, co-op, and turning a paradise setting into a zombie slaughter melee – and a game that adds a ton more content and combat options on top of that.

And we wanted to have all of that that done for release in spring 2015.

We have been looking at the game long and hard, and we have decided we didn't reach that goal we set out to achieve quite yet. This is why we have decided to delay Dead Island 2 to 2016.

Right now we are focusing purely on development, and we will have more info to share at a later stage.

We know that our fans will be disappointed by this news, but by giving Dead Island 2 more time we are confident that everyone will get a better game to play as a result.