Dead Island 2 to be a cross-generation game

A new job listing on developer Dambuster Studios’ website suggests that the upcoming Dead Island 2 will be a cross-generation game. The job listing in question is for the position of Art Director, and is the only one that mentions that Dead Island 2 will be available on both current and next-generation consoles.

In total there are eight job listings that mention that staff will be working on the next big installment in the Dead Island franchise. We know that this will be Dead Island 2, since the game has been announced as in development, and moved to Dambuster Studios in recent years.

Dead Island 2 has been in development since the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One first launched. The game was set to release at some point during the current console generation, but it has changed hands so many times now that it seems as though it will almost completely skip a generation in-between the first and second mainline games.

Some developers have confirmed that their games will be cross-generation already. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those games, and will launch for current generation consoles this September, but also as a launch game for the Xbox Series X. Other games will launch for both generations of consoles in 2021, showing that it’s going to be far from uncommon to do so.

Dambuster Studios no doubt have plans to bring Dead Island 2 to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X as soon as possible. However, they’ll need to do so in the next two years or so for the game not to feel dated when it launches.

What has probably happened, is that Dambuster Studios have started fresh with a lot of the content in the game. This is pretty standard, since it’s harder for a developer to pick up the work of a previous company, understand it, and finish it. What makes far more sense, is for the new developer to start fresh.

Dambuster Studios took over the development of the game late last year. If they started fresh work, they must be looking to prioritize the experience for next-generation consoles over current generation consoles. With that said, they may well have been forced to work with assets that have already been created, meaning that they will launch first for current generation consoles, and then produce an upgraded version of the game for next-generation consoles in the years following the game’s initial launch.