Dead Island 2

Dead Island 2 launched April 21, 2023 after the most infamous development hell in modern gaming—a decade-long nightmare that saw four studios (Techland, Yager, Sumo Digital, Dambuster) take the reins before Dambuster finally shipped it. Announced in 2014, the game went silent for years, with Kotaku reporting it was "basically canceled" multiple times. Dambuster inherited the project in August 2019 and basically started from scratch, keeping only the Los Angeles setting. The final game launched to 1 million sales in 3 days, 2 million by May 2023, and 20 million players by September 2025. Critics were shocked: Dead Island 2 was... good? StreamerHouse's 867-viewer peak in 2023 came during the "wait, it's actually out and doesn't suck?" launch window. Reviews praised the visceral combat, colorful gore, and Hell-A setting while noting the game was exactly what it promised—no more, no less. Dambuster's Technical Director said the "development hell" label actually helped: "people were expecting it to be terrible, so when it wasn't, we got a lot of goodwill." Deep Silver confirmed Dead Island 3 in September 2025, proving the franchise survived its near-death experience. Dead Island 2 is the ultimate redemption story: a game that should've been canceled, wasn't, and somehow became a surprise hit through sheer stubborn persistence across a decade of chaos.