Yager Development Won't Be Working on Dead Island 2 Anymore

Get back in that grave

by Ryan Oehrli Tue 14th Jul 2015

Dead Island 2 has seen its fair share of development troubles, but things are now coming to a temporary close, as publisher Deep Silver has announced that it's cutting ties with German developer Yager Development. No specific reasons were given, but it's easy to infer that the title's quality was a big problem.

"With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve," the firm told the 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."

Well, that's that. Our bet: don't expect an announcement anytime soon. Honestly, we're kind of wondering how the game will even do at this point, with so many delays and now a studio swap. Oh, who are we kidding? Just go play Dying Light.

[source kotaku.com]

1
AdamNovice
Tue 14th Jul 2015

I suspect Sony will be asking for their money back for the "exclusive beta" they announced at E3 last year.

2
get2sammyb
Tue 14th Jul 2015

Not surprised by this at all. I interviewed Yager at EGX last year, and whenever I tried to ask a question about anything on the creative side I was given the impression that Yager were just the grunts realising Deep Silver's vision for the sequel. I don't know how true that it is, but I thought it was very strange at the time.

As such, if the game wasn't developing in line with what Deep Silver wanted, I could totally picture them yanking Yager off the project. I'm generally used to PR shutting down questions during interviews for blockbuster games, but this was the most bizarre interview I've ever done.

3
get2sammyb
Tue 14th Jul 2015

Just to add, it's clear that they were also blindsided by the success of Dying Light. When you consider that the first two Dead Island games weren't actually that well received critically, I do wonder if Deep Silver thought that they were 'trading up' by changing developers.

I certainly can't imagine they ever expected Dying Light to be such a critical and commercial hit.

4
stevie85
Wed 15th Jul 2015

I have literally no hype at all for this as I felt the last two dead Island games were just awful. Fetch quest after fetch quest with clunky melee thrown in for good measure.