Dead Island 2 picks up new developer

Dead Island 2 is in development at Sumo Digital, publisher Deep Silver confirmed. The company told MCV that it had moved production of the zombie shooter over to the studio, with further details about the game still to come.

Sumo Digital has previously worked on games in the Disney Infinity and LittleBigPlanet series. The studio is also working on Crackdown 3 alongside Dead Island 2.

The change follows the loss of Dead Island 2's original developer Yager Productions in 2015. Deep Silver parted ways with that studio last July, which Yager CEO Timo Ullmann attributed to a difference in vision for the project.

"Yager and Deep Silver's respective visions of the project fell out of alignment, which led to the decision that has been made," he said following the split.

Later that month, the studio filed for insolvency. It claimed that the move was a direct result of the termination by Deep Silver.

Deep Silver delayed Dead Island 2 to 2016 after missing E3 2015 but prior to the developer switch. The company had originally scheduled the game, which will launch on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, for a spring 2015 release. In the meantime, the publisher confirmed this week that a collection including the first Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide will launch on PS4 and Xbox One this May.

We've reached out to Deep Silver to confirm that the game is still on track for a 2016 release now that Sumo Digital has signed on and will update accordingly.