In a nutshell: This playable version of the game, dated June 2015 (which makes it a Yager production), is incomplete and is showing its age. But, it does show the direction that Yager was taking the game before parting ways with Deep Silver due to creative differences. Yager filed for insolvency just one month later in July 2015.
Dead Island 2 first broke cover way back in 2014 at the Gamescom trade show in Germany. The survival horror action role-playing game was billed as a true sequel to the original 2011 release but unlike the title suggests, the game’s action was to play out across various real-world locations in California.
Unfortunately, it got bogged down during development and has been stuck there ever since. As the story goes, Yager started working on the game but was later replaced by Sumo Digital. In August 2019, THQ Nordic said Dambuster Studios – a studio within Deep Silver – had taken over the project.
You can imagine the surprise, then, when an early build of the game recently leaked on the Internet.
Odds are, the final product that (hopefully) eventually ships won’t look anything like this. Instead, think of it as an alternate timeline version of the game.
Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz told GamesIndustry.biz late last year that Dead Island was a very important brand for them, adding that they’ve got to get it right.
https://www.techspot.com/news/85528-early-build-dead-island-2-leaks-internet.html
