All these years later, Dead Island 2 is launching a week early

After years in the works and multiple delays, Dead Island 2 is launching one week earlier than planned.

Just earlier today, on February 13, Dead Island 2 developer Dambuster Studios announced that the survival horror sequel has finally gone gold after many years of development, and as such, it'd be releasing one week earlier than planned. Dead Island 2 will be here on April 21 around the world, and the finish line for the beleaguered zombie game just got that much closer.

Dead Island 2 has been in development for over a decade across multiple studios - what's one more week to wait? A lot, as it turns out, because Dambuster Studios and publisher Deep Silver apparently see some merit in moving the release date up a week, which just so happens to take Dead Island 2 out of launching on the same day as Respawn's recently delayed Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

This gets even weirder because Dead Island 2 was initially delayed by 12 weeks late last year in 2022. The irony of delaying the long-gestating game wasn't lost on Dambuster Studios, who pushed the release date back from February 3 to April 28. At least now we know Dead Island 2 would've gone gold just 10 days after its original release date.

Having begun initially shuffling around developers back in 2011, it's been a long old road for poor Dead Island 2. Starting life at Techland, but being transferred over to Yager when the former chose to focus on Dying Light, Dead Island 2 was then taken off Yager in 2015, before being handed over to Sumo Digital in 2016. In 2019, the sequel was transferred to Dambuster Studios, which is the version of Dead Island 2 that will finally, at long last, release on April 21, 2023.

Check out our extensive Dead Island 2 preview, including an interview with Dambuster Studios, for what to expect from the final version of the game.