Dead Island patch fixes major Steam mistake, but wipes save data

We're not giving up on Dead Island, but even for a high-profile title that launched with noticeable bugs, it's having a hard time. The PC version of Dead Island launched on Steam yesterday, but not the version of the game that developer Techland or publisher Deep Silver, intended. A pre-release development build that hadn't been optimized and had cheats and dev keys still available was mistakenly uploaded. Today, Techland has made its first move to fix the problem, releasing the correct version of the game in the form of a patch.

Unfortunately, downloading the patch will wipe any saved games, but you'd better do it anyway because there are sure to be more patches and DLC coming. Techland tried to find a workaround for the problem, but when it couldn't, the dev team added a chapter select option for new games. That way, players who tried to play the pre-release version can choose the same character and at least get close to where they were before.

While today’s fix addresses many issues, the patch has also led to new problems; the Ripper activation is not working properly. Techland is aware of these issues and is working to fix them. As a gesture of good will, Techland has also promised an unannounced treat to “make up” for this snafu in the next few days.

Sep 7, 2011