Yager Devs Discuss What Went Wrong With The Canceled Version Of Dead Island 2

gamespot.com:

Dead Island 2 was originally set to come out in 2015, and its original developers at Yager have now publicly discussed why their version was canceled.

By Steven T. Wright on

Dead Island 2 finally came out this year to decent reviews after a tumultuous nine-year development cycle that spanned three different studios. A recent report from Game Informer reveals that the game's original developer, Yager, was not fully prepared for the scale of the project, and that Unreal Engine 4 was a key part of why its version of the game was canceled.

The Game Informer report cites «numerous people» who worked at all of the studios involved during Dead Island 2's development, all of whom remain anonymous. It suggests that the unexpected success of the original Dead Island led developer Techland to scramble to come up with the sequel pitch, which was rejected by publisher Deep Silver for straying too far from Dead Island's core identity. (That pitch would eventually become the nut of the Dying Light franchise.)

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Now Playing: Dead Island 2 Everything To Know

According to the report, Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager was hired to make Dead Island 2 primarily because the studio offered the lowest bid. The project was set to be a more faithful Dead Island sequel that shared the original's campy tone and took place in a walled-off California.

However, according to multiple sources, the game's publisher told Yager that it wanted the game to have eight-player seamless multiplayer, which was a huge shift in priorities. In addition to that,