Dead Island 2: A Massive Hit Among Gamers in Just Three Days

The highly-anticipated and recently launched zombie-slaying sequel Dead Island 2 has been met with great acclaim after a nine-year wait. The game was initially revealed in 2014, but Dead Island 2 experienced three different studio shifts during its prolonged development, until Dambuster Studios was finally able to complete it in 2023.

At Gamescom 2022’s Opening Night Live, Dead Island 2 made an impressive comeback with a fresh gameplay trailer and a planned release date of February 3, 2023. Despite the game’s promising visuals and dismemberment system, gamers had doubts about the sequel’s revival due to its nine-year absence and changing hands with four different studios. Nonetheless, after a minor additional delay to April 2023, Dambuster Studios, who had worked on Homefront: The Revolution and Chorus, was able to send the resuscitated Dead Island sequel out into the world, where it subsequently found tremendous success.

One rarely seen feature available on the Epic Games Store is Dead Island 2’s Cross-Save Progression and Achievements.

In the wake of its release, Dead Island 2 has racked up one million sales in only three days – a remarkable figure, especially when compared to the original game’s five million copies sold over a two-year period. Despite the troubled development of the sequel, this milestone is still an impressive accomplishment for the team at Twitter.

me kicking every zombie I come in contact with pic.twitter.com/Ys7czVZrk7

— WaffleDew (@Waffledew) April 24, 2023

The one million milestone is especially significant given that the Dead Island 2 follow-up is out just a week prior to the launch of the widely awaited Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. One would presume many gamers would opt to not buy Dead Island 2 and instead would spend their money on the other highly renowned video game series releasing new titles in the coming days such as Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Street Fighter 6.

It appears that the resurging buzz around Dead Island 2 has allowed it to finally break out of its nine-year slumber. Its linear, colorful zombie-slaying journey set in LA is reminiscent of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation. It is likely that a combination of nostalgia for the simpler zombie game days as well as the enthralling visuals and a dynamic and gory system was what helped it hit one million players in its first three days. It will be interesting to see if Dead Island 2 can maintain its success with upcoming major titles such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the horizon.

Dead Island 2 is available for purchase for gamers on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.