Uh...

Well then, that's not exactly reassuring. Makes me wonder if Dead Island 2 will thusly lead into ''development Hell'' or something. It's a shame as from what they've shown at least Dead Island 2 looked like it was shaping up quite well. But then of course for all we know things may have been a fiery mess... Though that's also how most games tend to be it seems for most of development. Regardless, a game having to switch developers isn't a good sign, so I'm curious to see what's to come of Dead Island 2. New developer? Cancellation? Bought & Published by Nintendo as a Wii U exclusive? Hopefully this'll eventually end more in-line with, say, a Metal Gear Rising sort of turnout as opposed to Duke Nukem Forever.

I guess all Dead Island games are destined to be dumpster fires? I remember the launch of the first game as a total train-wreck, with the wrong build pushed out on Steam. It was the only game I've ever played in which tapping a certain key (I think it was Y) would crash the game 100% of the time.

Ha, I had forgotten all about that.

@yummylee: It was hilarious, with no-clip and a totally unintentional third person camera bound to normal keyboard keys. Not even key combos, just...the letter T. Even once they fixed all that, the game was still filled with such gamebreaking bugs like "Sometimes you just can't use savegames" for years afterward.

My guess is Yager wanted to do something that Deep Silver wasn't comfortable with. Or they missed a milestone or two. On the whole I'm not sure if Dead Island 2 would've actually gotten a ton of sales because it really seems like the zombie bubble has burst.

Is it just me or has stuff like this been getting more and more common recently?

Well, shit. That's not good. Between this getting... whatever they're going to do to it, and Hellraid getting cancelled (goddammit, I really wanted that game), it's a good thing Dying Light was a success. Dead Island's future always hung by a contentious thread as it was, so I hope that sweet sweet Dying Light money gets this thing finished and out.

Oh no, Hellraid was cancelled?? That thing looked real neat. Basically a first-person Dungeon Crawler but with Dead Island combat.

It's basically on hiatus - Techland said they need to rework the game from the ground up.

Dying Light killed any momentum this might have had regardless, there is no way this would have been as good as that was.

Also Dying light wasn't some AAA beast but I did Co-op for the entire thing and it was a fucking blast.

Sorry, just looked up a source for you, and it turns out Techland refuted that statement last month. It's just on hold. Phew! Still in the air whether it'll be good Techland or bad Techland, but at least we'll get to find out.

I wonder how Techland is still a thing considering they've made more bad games than good games. I also wonder how Deep Silver has deep enough pockets to keep paying for development when the only games they've managed to put out is Metro: Last Light and the Saints Row IV Re-Elected compilation.

I mean, both of those were successful, but I don't think they were so successful that they afford Deep Silver ample resources to fund projects on hold as well as sign and drop developers willy nilly.

Probably won't happen since DI2 was being developed without Techland, so Dying Light's success won't help Deep Silver a bit.

And yes, Hellraid looked rad, I really hope that comes back in some form.

Does Dead Island need to even exist any more? I feet like Dying Light ate its lunch and now there is no point to its existence.

Dying Light went in a pretty different direction, though. Admittedly haven't played it, but it looked to have less of a focus on RPG skill trees, multiple character classes ect., and of course lacked the analogue combat of Dead Island, to which DI2 was said to retain. That, and DI2 looked to essentially be a first-person Dead Rising, with its incredibly colourful art style and tone, whereas Dying Light looked to continue on from the self-seriousness of the first Dead Island. Not to mention how Dead Island 2 was also supposed to be open-ended ala Journey, with you bumping into players in the world at random and there apparently being no solid 'end' to the game. Oh, and dual-wielding! Including being able to dual-wield a ranged weapon in one hand and a melee in the other.

Obviously none of this matters now because who knows what Dead Island 2 will shape into (if it isn't simply cancelled), but when YAGER were at the helm I'd say they both were surprisingly distinctive in a number of ways.