The oft-delayed, always-mysterious Dead Island 2 might still be coming if a new job listing at developer Dambuster Studios is any indication. The position is for an art director to work on a recreation of Los Angeles and, “create the sun soaked backdrop to a full scale zombie apocalypse set across the iconic Californian city for the next installment in the world renowned Dead Island franchise.” The listing also references creating a title for, “current and future platforms,” potentially hinting at a cross-gen release for the game.
It’s been a long and bumpy road for Dead Island 2, the follow up to Techland’s co-op zombie-killing titles. After developing 2011’s Dead Island and its 2013 follow up, Dead Island: Riptide, the Polish studio moved on from the franchise to start a new post-apocalyptic zombie series, Dying Light. During Dead Island 2’s reveal at E3 2014, it was announced that Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager Development was put in charge of the numbered sequel. However, Deep Silver and Yager had a falling out, and Deep Silver transitioned development to Team Sonic Racing and Crackdown 3 studio Sumo Digital in 2016. Then, last year, it was announced that Dambuster Studios, which took over development on Homefront: The Revolution when Crytek suffered financial woes and its relationship with Deep Silver went downhill, would be taking over Dead Island 2 as well; an interesting twist, seeing as how Yager and Crytek shared Deep Silver’s E3 2014 meeting area to show off Dead Island 2 and Homefront: The Revolution respectively. Now, Dambuster Studios will have (hopefully) finished both of those titles.
Things have been quiet for Dead Island 2 ever since Dambuster took over, but with this new job listing, it’s possible the team is building toward a re-reveal sometime soon. Dead Island 2 was originally set to release in 2015, but has been continually delayed thanks to its turbulent development.
[Source: Dambuster Studios via Destructoid]
