Dead Island 2 Just Became Deep Silver’s ‘Biggest Launch’…

It seems as though the wait for the hotly anticipated Dead Island 2 was worth it in the end, especially for publisher Deep Silver, which says the sequel has become its "largest launch" in terms of sales and revenue. With Outlast Trials launching in early access recently, the success of the Resident Evil 4 remake, and new DLC for Dying Light 2 on the way, now seems like a good time to be a fan of horror gaming.

Fans of the original Dead Island had been waiting for years for a follow-up. While the 2011 release was not massively well received, it was praised for having one of the most emotional game trailers of all time. Sadly, the game didn't seem to do the teaser much justice, but it still had its following. Perhaps for that reason, developer Dambuster decided to go for a more irreverent approach for the sequel, injecting a dose of humor into the new entry.

Whatever the studio did seemed to work at least, as Deep Silver has announced that Dead Island 2 has not only reached an impressive milestone, selling over two million copies, but has become the publisher's most successful release to date. The news comes from a recent Embracer Group report, as spotted by PC Gamer, saying that the Dead Island follow-up has "far surpassed" expectations in terms of units sold and overall revenue generated since the game launched in April. Even given the general hype for the sequel, after years of being in development, it's impressive to see that it's become the biggest launch in the history of Deep Silver and parent company Plaion.

With the game also receiving a good amount of praise, it seemed Dambuster and Deep Silver were onto a winner from day one. In fact, Dead Island 2 hit one million sales just three days after launch. To put that into perspective, the first game in the series took two years to shift five million copies, so the second installment achieving just under half of this in about a month is an impressive feat by any standards.

In fact, many fans would consider Dead Island 2 to be one of the best zombie co-op shooters out there, on par with such classics as Left 4 Dead. While the zombie genre seemed to be dying out at one point, a few notable releases have helped bring it back to the fore, which is good news for those who like nothing more than mowing down hordes of the undead.

Dead Island 2 is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.