Dead Island 2: Yager exits zombie sequel [UPDATE]
Dead Island 2 publisher Deep Silver has made a surprising announcement.
Dead Island 2 had, been in development at Spec Ops: The Line and Dreadnought studio Yager Development, but Deep Silver has announced the team will no longer be working on the open world zombie sequel.
"With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve," the publisher said in a statement provided to press.
"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 has also commented on its departure from the project.
"Our Yager team is fully committed to the development of AAA quality titles," said Yager CEO Timo Ullmann in a statement. "We work closely with international publishers and partners and have at the same time always remained an independent development studio.
"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. We’ll focus our current efforts on Dreadnought together with Six Foot and our publisher Grey Box as well as on new projects.
"Just as the many fans of Dead Island we sincerely hope that DI2 will shape up to be the great experience everyone has been waiting for."
No word yet on who will pick the project up. The PC, PS4 and Xbox One game was delayed into 2016 earlier this year.
I won't speculate on the reason for the split, but it's a shame; I have a lot of respect for Yager, and early Dead Island 2 materials suggested the team was taking a light-hearted approach.
Dead Island was originally developed by TechLand, but the developer went its own way when its vision for the future of zombie games evolved into Dying Light - quite a different product than Dead Island.