A new Dead Island game may be on the way

If the Australian Government's videogame classifiers have it right, we may soon be hearing about yet another installment of Dead Island-branded zombie-splattering good times. The classification site recently listed a new game called Dead Island Retro Revenge, which it slapped with an “M” rating for bloody violence and online interactivity.

Australia's game rating site doesn't serve up quite the same kind of joyously juicy details as our ESRB, but it does indicate that the game is being published by Koch Media, the parent company of Deep Silver, and that it's being developed by Empty Clip Studios. Empty Clip created the Rapid Fire Engine used in Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, did an “end-to-end port” of Bit.Trip Core, and also developed the 2012 indie hit Symphony. Last summer the studio announced that it had begun work on a sequel to Symphony entitled Symphony Worlds, which is expected to be out early this year.

2015 wasn't a very good year for the Dead Island franchise: Dead Island 2 was delayed and then lost its developer, and the Dead Island: Epidemic MOBA was shut down in October before it even had a chance to get out of Early Access. Hopefully 2016 will go a little more smoothly. I've contacted Deep Silver for confirmation, or at least a spot of clarity, and I'll update if I receive a reply.

Thanks, Destructoid.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.