UPDATE What's going on with the triple-A sequel? It's unclear, but a statement to the press hints at tumult beneath the surface.
Deep Silver has dropped development studio Yager from Dead Island 2 development, as confirmed by a statement the company released to the press today:
"With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve. After careful consideration, today we announce the decision to part ways with development partner Yager. We will continue working towards bringing our vision of Dead Island 2 to life, and we will share further information at a later stage."
The studio notably previously produced Spec Ops: The Line, praised for its narrative design; the original Dead Island, developed by Techland, sold millions of copies and became a big success for the publisher. Techland went on to work on Dying Light for Warner Bros after tensions arose with Deep Silver.
There's no hint on the current status of the game -- whether development will continue based on Yager's work so far or be restarted from scratch, nor what studio has taken over development of the title. According to the game's official website, it'll be out next year on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox One; Yager's branding has yet to be removed from that site, however.
Update: After we published this story, Yager CEO Timo Ullmann issued a statement to the press that read, in part: "The team worked with enthusiasm to take Dead Island 2 to a new level of quality. However, Yager and Deep Silver's respective visions of the project fell out of alignment, which led to the decision that has been made. We’ll focus our current efforts on Dreadnought together with Six Foot and our publisher Grey Box as well as on new projects."
He's referring, of course, to the free-to-play spaceship dogfighting game Dreadnought Yager announced at E3 2014 that's slated for release later this year.
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