Dead Island

Ah yes. Dead Island. I still remember watching the original trailer during E3 2006. It was dark, moody, and emotional. I was hyped for the game that looked like a serious take on the zombie genre. That trailer, however, was not indicative of the final, more goofy, product. While neither the developer nor the publisher let on about a troubled production, this game clearly hit some rough waters. Let's delve a little deeper into the most modern game I have ever covered. Basics Dead Island was developed by Techland Sp. z o.o. (I'll be referring to them as Techland) and published by Deep Silver Inc. The US and European releases were within days of each other during the first week of September 2011. It's an action game released on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows. Development The developer, Techland, is a Polish team and the publisher, Deep Silver, is a German team. Techland has moved onto creating the Call of Juarez and Dying Light games, while Deep Silver has published Saints Row, Homefront, and Warhammer games. Dead Island was announced in 2006, initially wasn't given a release date, and was eventually released five years later. While I couldn't find any developer interviews that detail a development hell, it is clear something was going on behind the scenes to delay Dead Island. After the initial announcement, there was very little info released. During 2008, there were no press releases and it didn't show up at E3. People assumed the worst. Maybe it had been cancelled? In 2009, news sites started reporting that the silence was indicative of the game being scrapped. During an interview that year, developer Blazej Krakowiak said:

"Unfortunately our agreement with the game’s worldwide publisher imposed a media silence on us. All we are allowed to say is that the game is in development and doing great and that all future updates regarding the game will come directly from the publisher."

I'm not sure this actually eased anyone's concerns. However, in 2011 the game was back on the E3 table.

In February 2011, it was announced not only would the game be at E3, but it would be released in September of that year. The following is from a GameSpot interview with Peter Brolly at E3. He was from the Deep Silver publishing team. I'll be going over the highlights.

I must note how nervous this poor guy is. He is restless and sweating. Even so, he gives a good interview and hits all the talking points given to him. He starts by saying the game is a "classic holiday story." You drink all night, have a headache the next morning, and everything has turned to shit. You know, like real life. Of the game itself, there are four characters to choose from and players would have a large open map to explore. He says the single player will offer about 25-30 hours of gameplay, which sounds about right. He does eventually get asked an obvious question: why the difference in tone between trailers. He, interestingly, responds that there is no difference. He says that first trailer was to build atmosphere and still described the game as serious. He states they were moving away from the "slapstick nature of zombies." Of the zombies themselves, he says he prefers the old slow zombies, but that the game has a little bit of both.

During the same E3, Game Front interviewed Sebastian Reichert from Deep Silver. He also starts off talking about bad holidays and "terrible headaches", just like Peter Brolly. It is clear they were given some talking points and told not to stray from them. He does go into about five minutes more detail on the weapons though. One of my favorite sites, The Cutting Room Floor, goes into detail about a leaked developer build (more on this fiasco later). This build is still available, but it can get you banned on PC multiplayer. While none of this is unusual or telling of a troubled development, it is interesting to analyze nonetheless.

Firstly, the game had an ending that was scrapped. In this ending there would have been a series of monologues from each of the survivors you could play as. The final game has a news report instead. The original ending didn't go to waste though, as these speeches were later used in the DLC, Riptide. There were smaller story elements that were also scrapped. These were mainly memos and emails that the player could find.

As for the zombies themselves, they could have been a lot more difficult to fight. During the original build, the infected zombies had a script in their AI that would allow them to heal every time they paused and screamed. There were also six survivors that were tossed out and plenty of items that were cut. These include weapons: RPGs, sawed off shotguns, several rifles, and thermite grenades. Other items cut include binoculars, cigarettes, moonshine, poison, antibiotics, and several others. Previews

There is only one way to begin: with the notorious announcement trailer. I recommend watching it (source below), but here is a play by play: The whole trailer plays in reverse. It opens on the face of a dead girl with sad violin music in the background. It then follows a struggle between her family and zombies. It is a very somber trailer and was very different from the actual tone of the game, thus the controversy.

The earliest article I could find written about the game is from May 2006 (E3) by GameSpot. This early preview is also very different from the final product. I'm lead to believe that the original tone was quite different at this point. Dead Island's tagline is said to be "constant zombie besiegement and utter loneliness." They also note the game would have a single protagonist. Dead Island ended up with multiple survivors to rescue, thereby not being a lonely experience, and four different leads to choose from. They also list the game as a first person shooter. While there are guns in the game, the combat is mostly melee. GameSpot previewed the game again a couple days later. This time they had seen an early demo during the E3 floor show. I have to note that this article starts by saying this:

"The last time somebody tried to make a first-person shooter with zombie-oriented enemies, the game was Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green (and we all know how atrociously that turned out)."I honestly thought they were joking until I looked up the game. Turns out they weren't and now I have another game to add to my list. Anyways, they felt the game would actually turn out to be a "pretty good shooter."

The premise of the game is your character washes ashore, onto Dead Island. You begin looking around for your wife and find the island covered in zombies. This, of course, is not how things turned out story-wise. Couple this with the massive release delay and all that unused code, I think this game got scrapped early on. At the very least we know the story did. Of the game's tech side, it runs off the same engine as one of their other games, Call of Juarez. They also state that there will be various items lying around the game world that you can use and there would be puzzles, which did turn out to be true.

After this E3, as noted before, the game really dropped off the radar until around its release. An article from 2009, though, declares that "COJ dev still working on Dead Island." Techland released this statement:

"Unfortunately our agreement with the game’s worldwide publisher imposed a media silence on us. All we are allowed to say is that the game is in development and doing great and that all future updates regarding the game will come directly from the publisher."

They didn't even have word about who the publisher would be at this time. Deep Silver sure operates strangely...Anyhoo, the article also notes that all they have seen thus far is a tech demo, screenshots, and a trailer released in August the previous year. Sounds like most were questioning if this game really did exist, as I found a ton of articles reflecting the same press release. In 2011, Dead Island showed back up, as it was to be released (finally) later that year. Wired magazine was pessimistic, as they wrote an article titled "Don't Get Caught Up in Dead Island Trailer Hype." Their thesis statement is this new trailer is just a clip show/short film about the game and it doesn't give potential players a sense of the gameplay. They note that this type of thing isn't usually a good sign. Apparently Techland didn't even make the trailer, Axis Animation did. I can see where the worry came from. At E3 that year, GameSpot finally got their hands on a playable demo. They say the game "will try to evoke some of the tragedy and emotion you might expect from a getaway-vacation-turned-zombie-nightmare." They then run through the main protagonists and a couple of NPCs, and their stories. Apparently Peter Brolly was right. There are all different kinds of zombies: a little something for everyone.

Reviews Just a couple of months later, the game was finally released. After five whole years, people could finally get their hands on the game. Reactions were mostly positive despite the game being "nothing like the memorable trailer", as stated by Eurogamer. Sound Xbox Achievements mentioned the audio in the summary section of their review. They state there is "good voice work for all the characters, and superbly atmospheric growls and snarls that have you jumping for cover around every corner."

GameSpot only noted that the voice acting isn't always situation specific. One NPC screamed that she was being eaten alive when being shot in the head.

This is all I could find on the audio. I think that in of itself is very telling. As I sit here trying to remember anything about the sound and failing to do so, I can see why it wasn't mentioned. It is standard action game fare.

Graphics Eurogamer has a great article about the technical side of the game. The game runs off the in-house Chrome Engine 5, capable of detailed visuals on a large scale. There are some limitations though. Because of this extra detail, only about 7 characters can be on screen at any one time. There are also steaming issues, causing screen tear. They go onto to compare the PS3 to the Xbox 360 version. The 360 has slightly better graphics but more streaming issues overall. IGN also notes that the game is rough around the edges, mainly because of visual flaws and glitches. Giant Bomb goes so far to say that the game could have been their game of the year without the design and graphical issues. GameSpot says the quality of visuals is "unnerving" and Eurogamer referred to the game engine as "flaky." Gameplay/Summary Overall, Dead Island was considered to be an enjoyable romp, despite its rough edges. The highest score I saw in these reviews was an 84% from Xbox Achievements. They found the game to be best enjoyed by playing co-op, as that is really what it's built for. The story is "simple to a fault", but luckily Dead Island focuses on gameplay. In the end it took the reviewer 30-40 hours total to beat the main game. They summarize their review by saying that while the graphics and glitches are "intrusive" and hold the game back, it is still a fun time and worth playing. RPGSite felt similarly. Up top they note that the patches hadn't fixed the glitches. Still, they enjoyed the game for what it is. Much like the Xbox Achievements article, this author thought the story was "...grade-D nonsense." They also agreed the online co-op mode is the best part of the game. Overall, they gave the game an 8/10.

The Escapist gave the same score, also noting the glitches that will "annoy" you. In the end, though, the game was still a ton of fun. Additionally, IGN also gave Dead Island an 8/10, noting all the same issues.

While Giant Bomb gave the gave the same score as everyone else, they were pretty hung up on the "technical blemishes." Like RPGSite, they thought the story was paper thin B-movie fare. And like Xbox Achievements, they thought that wasn't what mattered.

GameSpot and Eurogamer were less forgiving of the games sins, with scores of 7/10 and 6/10 respectively. GameSpot says the game starts stronger than it ends and has a ton of graphical and technical errors. Like the others, though, they still felt that the game was enjoyable. Eurogamer's summary really does say it all about their review and everyone else's:

"I suspect this will be one of those games that will be justifiably mocked by the majority for its many flaws but embraced by a forgiving minority, and passionately defended for its underdog status. Neither response will be entirely wrong. Much like gnawing on human flesh, Dead Island's clumsy horror-action role-player is the definition of an acquired taste."

Sequel It is clear that Dead Island had some kind of development hell due to the delays, change in story, and glitches. It would seem that its sequel is going through something similar, if it's still being developed at all. It was announced at E3 2014, and according to one developer for Yager, it was in development since 2012. As of this writing, it has been 7 years total. As of the announcement in 2014, there was already trouble brewing. When Deep Silver asked Techland for a sequel, they basically said they were too busy with Dying Light. So they hired Yager Development instead. Creative Producer for Deep Silver, Sebastian Reichert said they needed to fix the tone of the second game, acknowledging that the trailer for the first game was different from the final product. This is basically admitting that the story for the first game got scrapped. Couple that with the final story being paper thin, and I would imagine this is true. Deep Silver would use Yager Development until Sumo Digital took over in 2016. This is likely delayed the game further. As for the game itself, it is supposed to be far bigger with more expansive co-op, as well as a new setting. In July 2014, a collector's edition was announced for Dead Island 2. Interestingly, Deep Silver was holding a poll on what it should include, which I can respect. Always listen to the fans! Granted, I think they actually held this poll because they got into hot water over the collector's edition for the DLC Riptide. In case you are wondering, the collectible was a statue of the torso of a woman in a bikini, with limbs removed. For Dead Island 2's there were all kinds of ideas, mainly because they allowed write-ins and people were coming up with some strange stuff. Not sure what the final contents ended up being, as the only articles I can find are about the start of polling. I imagine this got dropped by the wayside due to the drama with the development. When the game was announced at E3 2014, several publications got interviews with then developer Yager. GameReactor talked to Michael Kempson from the team about taking up the reigns. They had apparently worked with Deep Silver previously. Kempson goes into some detail about development: During prototyping they "discovered this kind of, this...this tone; we got it basically almost wrong." He says it ended up being almost funny...which is what they went with. The interviewer then asks if they found the first game too depressing. He says they wanted to explore something else from the original. They took the "Dead Island template" and were trying to work with it. Metro UK had an interview with game director Bernd Diemer at Gamescon 2014, just a few months after E3. He goes over some interesting points. He felt he understood why people were disappointed with the final product vs. the trailers. He states they are going to rectify that issue with the second game. Of the two options, humor fits killing zombies more than seriousness, he states. He also says there is going to be more story this time around. In September, Eurogamer asks a very good question. Why wasn't developer Techland making the sequel? It may have had more to do with the IP, rather than them being busy with other products, as the game is owned by Deep Silver. Game designer Maciej Binkowski says that they had "their ups and downs" together and that there is always tension between developers and publishers. In the end, it seems like Deep Silver turned Techland away. When asked if they didn't like Techland's work, Binkowski says "you'd have to ask them." Although he elaborates that their disagreement on the direction of the game may have contributed. By July the next year, solidifying that Deep Silver is difficult to work with, they dropped Yager as the developer. Yager released an announcement on their Facebook page that basically stated the two had separate visions for the game. Apparently, they weren't the only developer having trouble with Deep Silver either. Developer Crytek was having issues with the development of Homefront: The Revolution at the same time. Proving it was Deep Silver that dropped Yager and not the other way around, Yager started having financial issues due to Dead Island 2 being taken away from them.

After the fallout of Yager leaving development, there was radio silence for about two years. In March 2016 it was announced that Sumo Digital was the new developer. When asked about whether the game was truly still in development, Deep Silver insisted the game was still alive: "Dead Island 2 is in development at Sumo Digital, and we are excited by the progress the team are making with Deep Silver's most successful IP. When we are ready to share more information, we will." During another 2 year stint of silence, Deep Silver was acquired by THQ Nordic. I'm curious if THQ's problems bled into Deep Silver at all. Despite all of the development issues, they are insisting that the game is still being worked on. During THQ Nordic's E3 2019 financial briefing, they grouped Dead Island 2 into a group of games to be released in 2019.

As I was writing this blog post there was another announcement: Dead Island 2 is now on its third developer. Sumo Digital is no longer working on the project. Instead, Dambuster Studios is now taking up the task. Their press release states that this transition had been planned for some time. For those interested, Dambuster Studios was set up by Deep Silver in 2014. They, like Deep Silver themselves, are owned by THQ. Considering this game is on its third developer, it is difficult to say when, or if, this game will come out.

Misc. A Dead Island movie was announced back in 2011, when Lionsgate bought the IP. It was killed by a lack of momentum, partially due to several high level departures. Because of all this, the deal expired. This returned the IP to Deep Silver, at which time they decided to pair up with Occupant Entertainment. They would produce, finance, and market the movie.

The original plan for the storyline was to base it off of the original, infamous first trailer. However, Occupant announced that it could be based off the second game as well (whenever that comes out) or be something in between.

All that being said, these articles were written in 2014. I couldn't find a single news article later than that. It seems that this project may be dead again. I wonder if Deep Silver it THAT difficult to work with?

Dead Island: Definitive Collection was released on May 31 2016. It includes Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide (a stand alone DLC), as well as a 16-bit inspired beat-em-up called Retro Revenge. This collection features higher quality textures, lighting, shading, better blue effects, and a consistent UI across games. It also has better image quality overall. The PS4 version can use remote play and shareplay, as well as streaming and recording. All versions (PS4, Xbox One, PC) have four player co-op. The game was set to sell for $40.

One interesting note is that the PS4 version only contained the first game. Everything else would have to be downloaded. Of this Deep Silver said the following: "There are limitations where you are unable to have multiple multiplayer experiences on the same disc, unfortunately we can’t comment further."This was a little strange considering Deep Silver had put two games on a collection disc before. Perhaps this was them struggling to meet yet another deadline.

Dead Island: Definitive Collection was released on May 31 2016. It includes Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide (a stand alone DLC), as well as a 16-bit inspired beat-em-up called Retro Revenge. This collection features higher quality textures, lighting, shading, better blue effects, and a consistent UI across games. It also has better image quality overall. The PS4 version can use remote play and shareplay, as well as streaming and recording. All versions (PS4, Xbox One, PC) have four player co-op. The game was set to sell for $40.

One interesting note is that the PS4 version only contained the first game. Everything else would have to be downloaded. Of this Deep Silver said the following: "There are limitations where you are unable to have multiple multiplayer experiences on the same disc, unfortunately we can’t comment further."This was a little strange considering Deep Silver had put two games on a collection disc before. Perhaps this was them struggling to meet yet another deadline. As mentioned earlier, Deep Silver and Techland had one major goof during the PC launch of Dead Island. Instead of releasing the official game, they released their dev build. At first, everyone chalked up the glitchiness to it being a console port. But then people started discovering developer specific tools. A look into the code confirmed suspicions. A day one patch was released that fixed 37 main issues. A second patch removed the developer tools. This next "blunder" (or unrestrained sexism) was a direct result of the dev build being released. Female character Purna has a move called "Gender Wars", which allows her to deal extra damage against male victims. However, in the code it was found to be named "Feminist Whore." Techland admitted to the error (what else could they do?) and said the man responsible would face "professional consequences."

Last bit of misc. information: the game ended up banned in Germany, where it was made. It was put on list B, which is reserved for media that contains extreme torture or Nazi content. This makes it illegal for stores to sell it and shipments risk being seized by customs. The exact reasons for the ban were not given, however. It seems Techland and Deep Silver were expecting this ban as both released unsurprised statements. Conclusion Dead Island had far more information around it than I was expecting. It's clear that the first and second game have been through a development hell. Perhaps one so bad that we will never see Dead Island 2 released. Time will only tell. In the meantime, go play the first Dead Island if this post has gotten you interested. It isn't a half bad time.

1) Basics - https://deadisland.deepsilver.com/us/dide_us.html - https://www.mobygames.com/game/dead-island 2) Development - https://www.mobygames.com/company/techland-sp-z-oo - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/coj-dev-still-working-on-dead-island - https://tcrf.net/Dead_Island - https://techland.net/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techland - https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,60602/ - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-17-techlands-dead-island-resurrected - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_GV35hlQSo - http://www.devicemag.com/2011/07/10/dead-island-peter-brolly-interview/ 3) Previews - https://deadisland.deepsilver.com/us/dide_us.html - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqrG1bdGtg - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/e3-06-dead-island-preshow-report/1100-6149857/ (5-10-06) - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/e3-06-dead-island-impressions/1100-6151166/ (5-12-06) - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/coj-dev-still-working-on-dead-island (7-6-09) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIg5htPlzw (2/11) - https://www.wired.com/2011/02/dead-island-trailer/ (2-17-11) - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-hands-on-preview-to-kill-a-zombie/1100-6313671/ (5-16-11) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=818tAB0SrNA (6/10/11) 4) Reviews - https://www.xboxachievements.com/game/dead-island/review/ - https://www.rpgsite.net/review/3017-dead-island-review - https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/9114-Dead-Island-Review.2 - https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/09/04/dead-island-review - https://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/dead-island-review/1900-415/ - https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dead-island-review/1900-6332786/ - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-04-dead-island-review?page=3 5) Sequel - https://www.polygon.com/2013/1/15/3878810/dead-island-riptides-bloody-torso-statue-sparks-anger-shock - https://www.gamereactor.eu/video/178954/E3+2014+Dead+Island+2+Interview/ - https://www.gamereactor.eu/video/187424/Dead+Island+2+Bernd+Diemer+Interview/ - https://www.polygon.com/2014/6/9/5793582/dead-island-2-release-date-e3-trailer (6-9-14) - https://www.engadget.com/2014/06/12/dead-island-2-turns-its-frown-upside-down/ (6-12-14) - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-12-dead-island-2-has-opt-out-8-player-multiplayer (6-12-14) - https://www.polygon.com/a/e3-2014/dead-island-2 (May/June 14) - https://www.engadget.com/2014/07/09/dead-island-2-collectors-edition-contents-up-for-public-vote/ (7-9-14) - https://metro.co.uk/2014/08/15/dead-island-2-interview-nobody-wants-to-work-on-a-s-game-right-4833455/ (8/14)

- https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-11-first-video-of-dead-island-2-gameplay (8-11-14) - https://www.engadget.com/2014/08/14/dead-island-2-paints-the-golden-state-red-with-blood/ (8-14-14)

- https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-09-11-why-isnt-dead-island-1-developer-techland-making-the-sequel (9-11-14) - https://web.archive.org/web/20150715184907/http://www.gameinformer.com/b /news/archive/2015/07/14/deep-silver-drops-yager-as-developer-of-dead-island-2-.aspx (7-15-15) - https://www.gamesradar.com/yagers-fine-its-just-dead-island-2-bit-s-shut-down/ (7-29-15) - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-05-08-dead-island-2-is-still-alive-deep-silver-insists (5-8-17) - https://www.pcgamer.com/dead-island-2-is-still-coming-says-official-twitter-account/ (7-6-18) - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-2-development-resumes-with-littlebigpl/1100-6435521/ - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-2-has-not-been-canceled/1100-6467143/ (5-23-19) - https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/05/23/dead-island-2-is-apparently-still-alive - https://www.tweaktown.com/news/66029/dead-island-2-release-happen-2019/index.html - https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/08/14/dead-island-2-is-officially-on-its-third-developer - https://screenrant.com/dead-island-2-update-different-developer/ 6) Misc. - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-movie-back-in-development/1100-6421454/ (8-2-14 Movie) - https://www.engadget.com/2014/08/03/report-dead-island-movie-back-from-the-grave-of-hollywood/ (MOVIE) - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-movie-in-development/1100-6336883/ (movie) - https://www.polygon.com/2014/8/1/5960827/dead-island-movie-deep-silver - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-definitive-collection-confirmed-also-c/1100-6435307/ (collection) - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-03-dead-island-definitive-edition-headed-to-pc-ps4-xbox-one (collection) - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-island-definitive-collection-on-ps4-only-incl/1100-6440222/ (collection) - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-04-dead-island-survivors-is-a-mobile-tower-defense-game (mobile) - https://www.androidauthority.com/dead-island-survivors-review-884183/ (mobile) - https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/dead-island-survivors (mobile) - https://web.archive.org/web/20120515081808/http://geek.pikimal.com/2011/09/06/dead-island-dev-build-accidently-released-on-steam/ (build leaked) - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-06-steam-dead-island-an-xbox-360-dev-build - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/06/ultra-oops-dead-island-dev-build-released/ - https://kotaku.com/dead-island-maker-gives-leading-lady-a-feminist-whore-5838387 - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-09-techland-reflects-on-dead-island-blooper - https://www.pcgamer.com/dead-island-banned-in-germany/ - https://kotaku.com/germany-gets-around-to-banning-dead-island-5863642