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Dead Island 2 lives with February 2023 release date

It's been dormant for many years, but Dead Island 2 has risen from the grave and will be available early next year.

Ozzie Mejia

August 23, 2022 1:01 PM

Deep Silver

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Tuesday's Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation had something special for viewers that have stuck around for the previous two hours. It's a game that's been dormant for a long time, but as it turns out, Dead Island 2 is indeed alive.

A new cinematic trailer confirmed that there will indeed be a lot of zombie-killing, a lot of blood, a lot of makeshift weaponry, and a dose of zany humor all set in the sunny apocalypse-laden suburbs of Los Angeles. Why Los Angeles? It's certainly not an island (not yet, anyway), but it does allow the devs to give it the cheeky nickname "HELL-A." It also allows for a first look at Jacob, one of Dead Island 2's six playable characters, who has traces of the zombie virus running in his blood. It's not enough to turn him, but it does allow him to tap into some enhanced zombie-like abilities.

Players can either experience the Dead Island 2 story, along with its various side quests, alone or they can team up for three-player co-op. Three players seems like an odd number, but then again, Dead Island 2 seems like kind of an odd game. With oddness in mind, Dead Island 2 will also feature Alexa Game Control integration, which will allow players to interact with zombies and perform other functions using Alexa voice commands. You can learn more about Alexa Game Control over on Amazon and determine for yourself whether it'll prove useful. Will it be as bad as the voice control in Dead Rising 3? That remains to be seen.

It's been a very, very long road for Dead Island, one that goes all the way back to 2014. Dead Island 2 not only lives, but it also apparently has a release date. Look for it to come to PC (via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation, and Xbox on February 3, 2023, which certainly checks out with the leaked release date we got earlier this week.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?