The removal of the Dead Island 2 Steam page has fueled speculation that the long-in-development zombie-killing sequel might be on indefinite hold after switching developers.
Although publisher Deep Silver has yet to make anything official, the evidence continues to mount suggesting Dead Island 2 has been cancelled. Most recently, eagle-eyed gamers have discovered that the game’s steam page has since been removed.
While the removal of a Steam page is by no means a smoking gun when it comes to game cancellations, it is usually not a good sign. Couple that with the fact Dead Island 2 has been in development limbo for quite some time and it seems more likely than not that the game has been put on hold.
Originally announced back at E3 2014, Dead Island 2 was to be a Yager Development product, from the folks that brought us the critically acclaimed war shooter Spec Ops: The Line. However, as time went on it seemed less and less likely that Dead Island 2 was going to make its announced 2015 release date, and eventually the game was put on indefinite hold. According to official comment, publisher Deep Silver and the developer could not agree on a “vision” for the game and so the project was put on the back burner.
Soon after that it was announced that Sumo Digital, the folks behind the Sonic racing games and LittleBigPlanet 3, would be taking over. That was the last official word we had heard about the game, about two months ago. However, it was unclear how much of Yager’s work, if any, was being used and whether or not Sumo Digital would have the game ready for any type of E3 demonstration.
As mentioned previously, the removal of a Steam page by no way means that Dead Island 2 has been cancelled, but it certainly means that something is going on. Publisher Deep Silver would not simply let the page disappear unless either the game was starting over from scratch or it had decided to put the project on hold. It might also be that the Steam page was inextricably tied to the now-defunct Yager, and now Deep Silver wants to make sure that gamers know a new developer is involved.
Stranger than that, though, is the fact that Deep Silver is trying to build Dead Island buzz with the release of the Dead Island: Definitive Collection on current-gen platforms. Presumably a current-gen remaster/port would help get fans more eager to see what is next for Dead Island, not leave them with false hopes for a cancelled sequel. Still, we won’t know anything official until Deep Silver comes forward.