Yesterday the news dropped that Deep Silver, the publisher for Dead Island 2 parted ways with developer, Yager, releasing this statement..
"With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve,” the company says in a prepared statement. “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."
Very disappointing news.. But I guess there were some issues for quite some time before this already. And this could be the reason why Dead Island 2 was surprisingly missing at E3 2015.
And today, Yager responded with their own statement..
”Our YAGER team is fully committed to the development of AAA quality titles," writes Timo Ullmann, CEO of YAGER Group. "We work closely with international publishers and partners and have at the same time always remained an independent development studio. Our team is made of the best creative minds and tech specialists who all share a common identity. 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. More details will be disclosed soon. All I can reveal at this point is that gamescom will be awesome for Dreadnought.”
Well, that's a real pity..
If you remember correctly, Deep Silver did part ways with Dead Island 1's developer, Techland before Dead Island 2, also citing creative differences. Techland, of course went on to develop Dying Light under publisher, Warner Bros.
Understandable.. When plans for Dead Island 2 were drawn out, Techland and Deep Silver couldn't agree on the vision for Dead Island 2 and they parted ways. But this parting with Yager was a lot more shocking, so late into development.
Big question is.. What is Deep Silver's vision for Dead Island 2?
Doesn't seem like it is just 2 conflicting ideas for Dead Island 2.. Has Deep Silver clearly stated their "vision" to Yager or have they been undecided about this vision, leading to unhappiness from Yager?
Without knowing the real story I can't say much but I'm just hoping that Deep Silver do know what they are doing and the final Dead Island 2 release will be worth all the hassle. We probably have a while longer to see though, as the 2016 release date doesn't seem like a possibility at the moment.
Source: Game Informer
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