This is the story of an open-world zombie game you’ll never get to play—and the reason is brutally simple: “the game sucked.” The original Dead Island 2, developed by Yager, nearly sent the whole series to its grave, so the project had to be rebooted from scratch.

Although Dead Island 2 finally hit shelves in 2023 as a runaway hit—even though its developer, previously responsible for the divisive Homefront: The Revolution, inspired widespread skepticism—the road to release was one of gaming’s most notorious nightmares. Recently at Develop:Brighton, Martin Wein, former head of communications for publisher Deep Silver, spoke with rare candor about the internal struggles that stalled the project for almost a decade. His frank account sheds new light on why the game took so long to come together.

The development of Dead Island 2 became a never-ending relay of studios, none of which could land on a unified vision. After Techland shifted focus to Dying Light, Deep Silver passed the torch to various teams, ultimately settling on Yager, creators of Spec Ops: The Line. The debut trailer at E3 2014 sparked massive hype—thanks mostly to its lighter, tongue-in-cheek vibe—but within weeks, key milestones were already being missed, forcing the publisher to act. That’s when Deep Silver made the drastic decision to yank the project from Yager and restart almost entirely from zero.

The Development Was Stopped Because “the Game Was a Mess”

In this context, Wein explained that the California-based publisher overseeing the game saw the creative direction going so far off track from the franchise’s legacy that they had no choice but to shut the whole thing down. “That game sucked,” Wein declared bluntly, referring to Yager’s early version. The situation was so dire that the results of initial playtests were labeled “horrible”—to the point where releasing that version might have killed the series altogether.

“We could have put out a shitty game,” Wein admitted, “and maybe it would have made some money, but it would have killed the future of the franchise.” That’s why, according to him, the decision to reboot the project was painful but necessary. Even though it meant an eight-year delay, he believes that’s what ultimately enabled Dead Island 2 to succeed. The final release, completed by Dambuster Studios, finally reached players in 2023.

With millions of copies sold and a very positive reception, Dead Island 2 became one of the biggest releases of the year. Wein concluded that Deep Silver made the right call by putting quality and player experience above deadlines—a fresh lesson about the risks of releasing unfinished products, even in an industry where time is always against you.

Source: 3djuegos