Update:

Yager's studio team has officially responded to being removed from Dead Island 2's development. Company CEO Timo Ullmann told Polygon that his team is "fully committed to the development of AAA quality titles."

"Our team is made of the best creative minds and tech specialists who all share a common identity," Ullmann added. "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."

Ullmann hinted that his studio will already be having some major news to announce at Gamescom, which begins on Aug. 5 in Cologne, Germany. The developer is already focusing its attention on Dreadnought, its space combat game. Yager also has some other projects in the works, and we have a feeling we'll hear about them next month.

Original Story:

Deep Silver has decided to put a temporary bullet to the brain of Dead Island 2's development by dropping developer Yager from the project.

The Germany-based publishing company, Deep Silver, has announced that they are dropping the indie development team at Yager from Dead Island 2. This follows the obvious absence of Dead Island 2 during E3 2015. The previous E3 featured the debut cinematic trailer for this sequel. During Gamescom 2014, Deep Silver unveiled some early gameplay footage, revealing a bright and vibrant California setting, ranging from the hills of Hollywood to the sandy shores of Santa Monica, but with plenty of zombies in between.

Here's what a Deep Silver spokesperson had to say about the game's current situation:

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.

Obviously, fans of the original game are likely to ask, "why not use the developers of the original game?" The first game's developers at Techland were originally going to do the sequel. Techland decided to move on from the franchise and eventually released the parkour-oriented first-person zombie survival game, Dying Light, this past January. Now that Techland is done with Dying Light, perhaps they'll return to Dead Island? Nevertheless, this deals a major blow to Dead Island 2, as a developer usually isn't removed from a project by its publisher unless there were some major issues at hand.

Dead Island 2 was originally slated for a 2016 release on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. If there were some heavy issues with Dead Island 2 that the studio known for Spec Ops: The Line couldn't solve, then perhaps this sequel is best off not launching until 2017.

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