Deep Silver’s (hopefully) upcoming game, ‘Dead Island 2’ still doesn’t have a developer to finish it so far as we know, but at least we know that there are developers out there who would like to make it. In fact, Tymon Smektala, a producer at Techland, the developers of the first couple ‘Dead Island’ games before they went their own way and created ‘Dying Light,’ has stated in an interview with videogamer.com that he would “love to go back to ‘Dead Island’ and continue working on the series.
“I love ‘Dead Island’ and I think there is a place for both franchises to strive in the market. As long as someone would be able to find something that would make them different… Okay, here’s ‘Dead Island,’ here’s ‘Dying Light,’ and I think that’s doable, then why not?”
He also expressed sadness both at ‘Dead Island’s’ current state of being stuck in Limbo and the fate of Yager, who was recently let go from developing the game by Deep Silver.
“For us that was sad news. When something like that happens in the game dev industry it’s always sad news. You’re never happy that some other developer failed, because it could have been us, basically… ‘Dead Island’ is our child. It’s a title that we imagined, we developed. We made this game and we still have a very strong connection to that IP… I hope that we will see some more Dead Island in the future and I hope that Yager is not affected that much as it may seem right now.”
It should be kept in mind that while these statements at first glance look like Techland might be returning to ‘Dead Island 2,’ it’s actually not that likely at this point in time, unfortunately. Smektala repeatedly used the singular first person when talking about revisiting ‘Dead Island,’ and even asked videogamer.com to clarify that his statements were his own opinion and not reflective of Techland as a company. Obviously whether Techland were in negotiations with Deep Silver to return to the series or not, they wouldn’t be able to talk about it publicly.
Personally. I think it unlikely that Techland would return. They left the series in the first place because they couldn’t agree with Deep Silver over the direction to take the game, and whatever ideas Deep Silver has, I doubt that they would change so much in the past couple years as to say, “Hey, maybe those Techland guys were right!” Then again, Dying Light has been a huge success, so maybe over at Deep Silver they’re kicking themselves over not trusting Techland to handle things in the first place. At this point, it’s all speculation.
Would you like to see Techland return to the ‘Dead Island’ series or is it too late for Deep Silver and Techland to reconcile? If you could choose any developer to take the helm, which would it be? Let us know in the comments below.
