This is one week earlier than originally anticipated. Dambuster Studios didn’t give an exact reason (aside from jokingly saying it did it for a certain Twitter user asking for it to come out earlier) for the move. The developer also noted that Dead Island 2 went gold, meaning the game’s launch version is effectively done.

It’s possible that the team wanted to move away from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a massive game with a massive license that is also slated to come out on April 28. Survivor was initially supposed to debut on March 17, but was recently delayed, which coincidentally made it land on the same day Dead Island 2 was scheduled to launch.

Dead Island 2 has been a long time coming after being announced in 2014. Goat Simulator 3 even parodied it in one of its trailers. Techland, the developer behind the first entry and its spin-off, originally tried to develop it before it shifted its focus to Dying Light. Yager, the studio behind Spec Ops: The Line, was supposed to develop the game before Sumo Digital took over, which was also taken off the project. Dambuster Studios inherited the title after that and is behind this final iteration. A build from around 2015 leaked online in 2020 and, given the timing, was likely from Yager’s time on the title.