Dead Island 2 officially passes 20 million players as studio teases new game

Following years of development issues, studio switch-ups and more, the long-awaited Dead Island 2 finally released back in 2023 to solid reviews and strong sales. While celebrating the franchise’s 14th anniversary, the devs at Dambuster Studios have seemingly teased that another game is on its way.

Taking to their Steam page, the team at Dambuster Studios wrote: “It's been 14 years since Dead Island first splattered onto the scene, stranding players in the blood-soaked paradise of Banoi. Since then, the zompocalypse has crawled from tropical shores to the sun-drenched chaos of HELL-A in Dead Island 2, where over 20 million Slayers have left nothing but carnage behind.”

For context, Dead Island 2 sold 1 million copies in its first 3 days on the market – going on to push “well over” 2 million copies by the end of its first month. The final sales update we received was in February of this year, when it was confirmed that the game had sold 4 million copies.

That said, by then Dead Island 2 had already surpassed 10 million total players owing to its release on PlayStation Plus Extra. Most recently, the game was offered for free back in May through the Epic Games Store – likely aiding in its new players milestone.

All that said, by far the most interesting part of the announcement came at the end, with Dambuster stating: “This isn’t the final cut though. Dambuster Studios are already carving out what comes next. For now, the details stay under wraps, the outbreak is far from over…”

Dead Island 2 was far from perfect, but given just how long the game took to come to fruition, it was a pleasant surprise that it released at all – let alone the fact that it managed to be a critical and commercial success.

Hopefully Dead Island 3 or whatever it ends up being called doesn’t wind up taking a decade to come out.

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KitGuru says: What did you think of Dead Island 2? Would you welcome a sequel? What would Dambuster need to change for the follow-up? Let us know down below.

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