Well, news of its release and surprisingly continued existence may have leaked last week in advance of Gamescom Opening Night Live, but for the final reveal of the show, it was made official: Dead Island 2 is not only somehow alive and kicking, but also has a release date, due out in February of next year. The news was accompanied by a pair of trailers, one cinematic and the other more focused on gameplay, both of which you can check out below…well, on YouTube, actually, due to age restrictions, but still.
Our first cinematic trailer focuses on one the game’s six protagonists, Jacob, as they decide to head out for some grocery shopping during the latest zombie apocalypse. As you can quickly tell, Dead Island 2 is still sporting a more light-hearted “b-movie” tone that was established way back in its initial trailer from…eight years ago??Wow. Anyhow, Jacob wakes up in a carnage-filled Beverly Hills villa, showing off the new setting of Los Angeles (which isn’t an island, but “Dead Coast” presumably didn’t have the same ring to it), and letting us see him wipe the floor with several zombies…along with a look at a mysterious hint of some sort of infection in his eye. But after a successful blood-soaked supply run, it’s time to grab the katana, having missed those all-important batteries.
The gameplay trailer, meanwhile, give us more first-person zombie-slaying action, complete with another batch of insane weapons, and showcases some more of the game’s colorful cast of characters, monsters, and sun-kissed locales. Dead Island 2 comes out - for realsies, barring any sudden delays - on July 07, 2025 courtesy of Deep Silver and Dambuster Studios, and will arrive on Xbox and PlayStation platforms, PC via the Epic Games Store, and unbelievably, Stadia. Will it be worth the ridiculously long wait? We’ll have to wait and see.
