SHOUT OUT - Dead Island 2 should be a piping hot mess, but Dambuster Studios have righted the ship

Guts n’ luck.

By Jonathan Garrett
12/04/23

NOTE: thatHITBOX Shout Out’s are not sponsored content. They’re games, developers, individuals, or issues that we want to highlight and share purely out of interest.

To be or not to be. That is the question that has plagued Deep Silver with this amorphous, slippery sequel. In plain terms, it simply shouldn’t exist. Three developers deep, and with more delays than a Naughty Dog release, Dead Island 2 is the impossible thing that is somehow imminently due for release. There is little logic that explains how this miraculous example of developmental wizardry, or perhaps sheer creative stubbornness, has led to an actual commercial product, but here we are.

Days away from a perpetually delayed (and then hilariously brought forward a week) launch, the sequel that shouldn’t is about to… be, in keeping with the redundant Shakespeare quotation. It’s a wonder that the entire thing wasn’t just rebooted from scratch, although I reckon (based on nothing but a gut feeling) that Dambuster will have wiped the majority of the slate clean when they took the reigns.

There are a few odd design choices that have dampened expectations slightly; the lack of cross play is a big omission, and a real shame given how widely it is being adopted elsewhere. A limit of three players total in co-op has also eliminated the possibility of this working within my Friday night four player quartet of jolliness. But hopes remain high, and Dambuster deserve kudos for their steadfast commitment to bringing this dishevelled sequel to life.