Dead Island 2 Suffers Another Delay, Now Releasing On April 28, 2023

Embracer Group has recently dropped an interim report for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2022. Under the CEO Comments section of the document, it’s been said that Dead Island 2 is now planned to launch on April 28, 2023. This is a two-month delay for the game’s release, which has been originally hanging since 2014.

The decision seems to be impacted by the “mixed reception to some of the key second quarter PC/console releases” which is thought to influence sales in the coming sections of the next year. This is thought to affect releases of various console and PC games with one of them already being affected.  

The Rundown:

• Dead Island 2 is a first-person action-adventure title set in a chaotic zombie apocalypse. Featuring a humorous tone and a bustling open-world setting to explore, the title had its first announcement at E3 2014. Years later apparently, the game is still suffering from delays. 
• A recently published interim report by Embracer Group — the owner of the studios working on Dead Island 2 — has revealed that the game in question will now be released on April 28, 2023, instead of what the latest reveal trailer claimed, which was February 3, 2023.
• Dead Island 2 will now release after a further two-month delay. That is unless fate has more plans for the game’s release.

Dead Island 2 was first announced back in 2014 at E3, which is more or less 8 years from now. Little did many had it coming that the game would suffer from so many years of delay moving forward. But the idiom “Every cloud has a silver lining” has held partially true in the case of Dead Island 2. 

The game had its re-announcement back in August this year with a gameplay reveal following up shortly too. Up until now, the strongest competitor that Dead Island 2 will have to face now will be Dead Island 2, among the concurrently releasing games of 2023.   

Some are seeing eye to eye with the decision of Embracer Group, given the already packed released schedule of other games in February 2023. The likes of Forspoken and Fire Emblem Engage will be making landfall during that time, so the launch of Dead Island 2 a couple of months ahead doesn’t sound all too bad either. 

In case you’re not aware, Embracer Group acquired Koch Media/Deep Silver back in 2018 for a hefty sum. Even more so, the deal came with bundled extras and made Embracer the owner of Dambuster Studios as well—the developers behind IPs such as Dead Island and Homefront.   

Lars Wingefors, the CEO of Embracer Group comments on the situation by saying, 

For the overall group, we now expect Adjusted EBIT of SEK 8.0-10.0 billion in FY 2022/23 while we reiterate the forecast SEK 10.3-13.6 billion for FY 2023/24. The reduced forecast for the financial year 2022/23 reflects a mixed reception to some of the key second quarter PC/console releases, estimated to impact catalog sales in the coming quarters, shifts in the PC/console pipeline, including Dead Island 2, now planned for release April 28, and a more cautious view on the current macroeconomic situation, particularly related to the Mobile Games and Tabletop Games segments.”

Are you as excited as Dead Island 2 as we are after all these years? Do let us know in the comments section ahead.