Deep Silver Drops Dead Island 2 Developer Yager

I hope you weren’t disappointed by the lack of Dead Island 2 at this year’s E3, because it sounds like the project is in trouble. While Deep Silver, the publisher on the title, hasn’t officially cancelled the game, they have released a short statement that announces that they have parted ways with developer YAGER, the studio in charge of development:

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.

YAGER had chosen to go in a radically different direction for Dead Island 2, in both tone and gameplay, so it will be interesting to see if the project will look similar should it eventually resurface.

Update: Speaking with GamesIndustry, YAGER’s managing director Timo Ullmann explained that his team had to part ways with publisher Deep Silver because the two entities had conflicting visions of Dead Island 2:

“Our team is made of the best creative minds and tech specialists, who all share a common identity,” he said. “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.”