When a game goes into development hell, very few people expect to see a good product at launch, and if they even see the title, it can be considered an upcoming release with a pretty bad reputation.
However, as Dead Island 2 technical art director Dan Evans-Lawes told VGCAs in, that might not actually be a bad thing. “We were definitely worried at first,” he explained. “I remember when we took on the project, I was thinking ‘this is a poisonous holy grail,’ you know what I mean? Once we announced the game, people were interested because they knew it was already in the ‘ How long has it been in Dev Hell, I think people expected it to be bad, so were pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t.
Dead Island 2 launches next month, so we’ll have to see if this is the case for a fourth, and whether that appeals to its developers, but it seems Dambuster believes the formula is on the right track this time around.