It was a long 12-year stretch between Dead Island—the one with the famous reveal trailer—and the sequel, Dead Island 2, which wasn't particularly great but still managed to become "the biggest launch" in Deep Silver's history. That much of a break between games isn't ideal, although in hindsight it was clearly the right move: Former Deep Silver comms chief Martin Wein said earlier this year that the publisher could have pushed out the game to meet its original release, and it probably "would have killed the franchise."
So, good outcome, but with any luck one that won't have to be repeated: A financial report for Dead Island developer Dambuster Studios, shared today on Bluesky by Timur222, confirms that Dead Island 3 is now in development.
Dambuster Studios' financial statements are out (as of March 2025) The company employed 194 employees Dead Island 3 is in development The current predicted release window for the project is Q1/2 2028
— @timur222.bsky.social (@timur222.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-12-16T19:31:51.289Z
"After [the] release of Dead Island 2 Ultimate Edition in October 2024, the primary focus for Dambuster Studios is now Dead Island 3," the doc says. "All developers are assigned to the project and once the Luna and Mac versions of Dead Island 2 are complete all of Dambuster's QA team will also be assigned to Dead Island 3.
"Parts of the game are now in early production with feature, character, world, and story design moving at pace. The current predicted release window for the project is Q1/2 2028."
The report is for the year ending March 31, 2025, so development has presumably advanced since then. The document itself is dated November 24.
You remember this, right?
That a new addition to a successful videogame series is in development is hardly shocking news, and particularly so in this case: Dambusters said in September that it is "already carving out what comes next," and warned that "the outbreak is far from over"—not exactly a subtle tease about the studio's next big thing.
2028 is still a long way off, and that's a lot of time for schedules to go sideways, but hopefully we won't have a repeat of Dead Island 2, which passed between several developers until Dambuster got it over the finish line.
Hard to believe it's been 11 years.
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