Dead Island 2 is a game that was announced nine years ago, disappeared for long stretches since, and has changed developers more than once. Suffice it to say, it's been stuck in development hell for what seems to have been several years of that time period. But now, it's almost here. That's an exciting prospect for zombie genre and RPG fans, and if you've lost the plot over the past near-decade, don't worry. Here's everything you need to know about Dead Island 2, including its release date, its many delays and studio swaps, and more.

Dead Island 2 release date and platforms

Dead Island 2 arrives on April 28, 2023 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Xbox One, and PS4. This release date was announced in mid-November 2022, and actually came as a delay announcement. The game was previously set for February 2023. Hopefully it's the last delay in store for the long in-development game.

Dead Island 2 studio shake-ups and timeline

2014-15: While some of the game's way of being passed around to different studios may have happened behind closed doors, publicly we know of several changes since its announcement in 2014. The game was announced to be in development by Yager, as the original Dead Island studio, Techland, had moved on to begin working on Dying Light. The Polish studio later revealed it was not making Dead Island 2 due to what one Techland developer described as "a lot of moments where we would disagree on the creative vision of the project" with publisher Deep Silver.