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Unfinished 2015 build of long-delayed Dead Island 2 leaks online

The long-delayed Dead Island 2 has resurfaced in the form of a leaked unfinished build from 2015, with social media now flooded with videos and screenshots from the game.

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Dead Island 2, the sequel to 2011’s Dead Island, was first revealed through a trailer at E3 2014.

Dead Island 2 E3 Announce Trailer (Official International Version)

The E3 2014 trailer hyped up Dead Island 2, but unfortunately, things did not pan out for the co-op zombie shooter. It was supposed to launch in spring 2015, but years later, the game has still not been released.

Fans of the first Dead Island, however, may now catch a glimpse of what the sequel looked like five years ago. The unfinished but playable build of Dead Island 2, dated June 2015, reportedly appeared on 4Chan, and has been making waves on YouTube and Twitter, Eurogamer reported.

So I played the Dead Island 2 leak...and IT'S REAL

Some more shots because this is blowing up; and people can't seem to find it. pic.twitter.com/DfrssSeNw5

— Jason Harrdington (@JHarrdington) June 5, 2020

The build looks fairly complete, though there are some missing assets such as textures for certain surfaces. However, if this version of Dead Island 2 was indeed from June 2015, it would have been where developer Yager was before creative differences with publisher Deep Silver led to their split in July 2015. Eurogamer said that it has verified that the leaked build was the work of Yager.

Deep Silver said in March 2016 that Sumo Digital would continue Dead Island 2‘s development, but in August 2019, the game was transferred in-house to Dambuster Studios.

With such a rocky development history, we are left to wonder whether Dead Island 2 will ever see the light of day. Meanwhile, if it does, it is also unclear if it will resemble the leaked build, or if it will look like an entirely different project.

Digital Trends has reached out to Deep Silver for comments on the leaked Dead Island 2 build, and will update this article when we hear back.

Aaron Mamiit
Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…
Dead Island 2’s Amazon Alexa voice commands are novel, but limited
Dani lights a cigarette as zombies attack her from behind in Dead Island 2 key art.

I’ve always found myself interested in new technologies that could possibly enhance how we play or experience games. Whether it’s a computing innovation like cloud gaming or new controller features like the DualSense’s Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers, I love testing those things out. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to try Alexa Game Control during my recent hands-on preview experience with Dead Island 2.
When Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver’s Dead Island 2 finally launches on April 21, it will be the first game to support Alexa Game Control. By connecting one’s Amazon account to the game, players can use the voice-recognition capabilities of Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa to perform in-game actions like taunting zombies or equipping their best weapons. I was curious to see just how deep this went, but after some hands-on time, this first implementation of it proved to be little more than a novelty.

Hey, Alexa
Dead Island 2 players can toggle Alexa Game Control on when they first show up in Bel-Air after the game’s opening. It has a dedicated tab in the Options Menu where players can choose to enable or disable it, choose whether they want it to work automatically or with push to talk, set the voice capture threshold, and decide which microphone they wish to use.
After enabling Alexa Game Control, I immediately noticed a ring at the bottom-left corner of the screen. When I spoke, this lit up with blue and teal colors, like the top ring on an Alexa device, and text confirming whether it could do the action or not would appear. Not having to say “Hey, Alexa” also means it implemented itself into the game smoothly. At first, I tried to see if voice commands would work for basic things like walking, jumping, and dodging, to no avail. After this, I hopped to a save I had placed later in the game and opened its tutorial menu to see what Alexa Game Control could really do.
Reading its tutorials and lists of commands, the limits of Alexa Game Control became clear. It mainly provides quick shortcuts to save you a button press or two in the middle of playing. In Dead Island 2, Alexa Game Control has four main uses: setting waypoints, taunting enemies, triggering emotes, and switching weapons. The tutorial menus give a complete list of commands that work, although each wildly varies in its usefulness.
Oi, zombie!
The funniest use of this voice technology in Dead Island 2 is taunting zombies. Shouting something like “Hey, dude” or “Oi, zombie” to get the attention of enemies that hadn’t detected me always made me chuckle. It’s also occasionally useful; at one point, I got a bunch of zombies to walk into a large pool of acid and die after taunting them. While it takes the same amount of time as walking up to the zombie to get their attention, I see the potential in voice technology that lets you interact with the world like this.

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Dead Island 2: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more
soak sunshine slaughter first dead island 2 gameplay screenshot 3

Believe it or not, Dead Island 2 is not only still real, but it's actually coming out. For those who've been following the troubled trajectory this title has had, you know this is a story almost 10 years in the making. Originally revealed in 2014, Dead Island 2 has died and been resurrected no less than twice, with a new development team taking up the project each time. The average person probably assumed the game was scrapped years ago, but for those who never gave up hope, your faith has been rewarded.

Leaks did take some of the excitement out of Dead Island 2's big re-reveal during Gamescom 2022, but it couldn't stifle what looks to be a game far better than its beleaguered history would lead you to believe. Since so much has changed over the course of development, let alone with the entire gaming landscape, plenty of people may be wondering what all the excitement over this zombie game is all about. Grab yourself a blunt object and get ready to smash some zombie skulls as we run through everything we know about Dead Island 2.
Release date

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Dead Island 2 avoids Star Wars Jedi clash by bumping up its release date
Dead Island 2 zombie

Dead Island 2, a game that never seemed like it was going to come out, has gone gold and even had its release date moved up by a week. Originally slated for April 28, Dead Island 2 will now be released on April 21. That means it'll launch one week before Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which just had its release date pushed to April 28.
The developers of the LA-based zombie game revealed the news via a tweet with a video that highlights a bunch of comments asking if the game was polished and if it will actually ever be released before it confirms that Dead Island 2 has gone gold and is coming out a bit earlier than we currently expected.
https://twitter.com/deadislandgame/status/1625147886643150852
Release dates moving up instead of being delayed are a rarity, with one of the only recent examples being Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Still, the delay makes sense now that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is coming out on April 28. This announcement also feels cathartic after Dead Island 2's rough development. The zombie sequel has notoriously been delayed significantly more than most games. Originally announced in 2014 with a Q2 2015 release window, Dead Island 2 got pushed back again and again, switching developers multiple times and slowly seeming more and more likely to become vaporware.
Deep Silver Dambuster Studios' new version of the game finally reemerged as the big final reveal of Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022, but even after that, the game got delayed one more time to April 28. Even if it's moving its release date up by just a week, the fact that Dead Island 2 has gone gold and even moved its release date up a bit feels like the satisfying end to an excruciatingly long journey. Whether it's good or not, we finally don't have to wait much longer to actually play Dead Island 2.
Dead Island 2 will be released for PC, PS4, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on April 21. 

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