Dead Island 2 leak reveals new screenshots and February 2023 release

It looks like there’s going to be an official update on Dead Island 2 soon, as Amazon has accidentally shared a ton of new information.

Although there are a lot of contenders, Dead Island 2 may be the most delayed game ever, considering it was first announced in 2014, has technically never been cancelled, and now appears to be on course for a 2023 release.

The 2011 original was a surprise hit at the time but attempts to create a sequel quickly ran into trouble and Dead Island 2 has so far gone through three separate developers.

As far as anyone knows, the game is still being developed by Dambuster Studios – what remains of TimeSplitters developer Free Radical Design – but it’s been so long since publisher Deep Silver has talked about the game even that has been unclear… until this latest leak.

The new information includes a release date of February 3, 2023, new screenshots, and a detailed description of the game. Since it appeared, presumably accidentally, on Amazon there doesn’t seem to be any chance of it not being real, and the update was almost certainly being prepared for a Gamescom reveal next week.

The listing is still live, with outdated information about an August 18 release, but naturally the Internet was there to keep a copy of everything, with the product description calling the game a first person action role-player.

Dead Island 2 ‘takes players across the most iconic location of the City of Angels, now stained with horror, in an exciting pulp journey from the verdant suburbia of Beverly Hills to the quirky promenade of Venice Beach,’ says the description.

In other words, it still seems to have the same tone and setting as the original pre-rendered reveal trailer.

The description also confirms that there are six customisable characters to play as, with the option to re-spec them ‘instantly’.

These characters are all apparently immune to the zombie virus but are able to ‘harness the zombie inside’, no doubt to enable various special abilities.

There’ll also be ‘dozens’ of distinct zombie types and ‘hundreds of LA-themed variants’.

Previous rumours have suggested that the game has a major focus on co-operative play, although there’s nothing in the Amazon leak to suggest that.