Developer Dambuster Studios has released its most recent financial statements online, and the documents confirm that Dead Island 3 is now in development - with the team currently targeting a Q1/Q2 2028 release window for its Dead Island 2 sequel.
The team teased a new series entry last September, but DI3 wasn't officially named back then, so this is the first time we've heard proper confirmation of the upcoming title. Dambuster says that "all developers are assigned to the project" right now, with the studio's full QA team to follow once Dead Island 2 is out on the Luna and Mac platforms.
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"After release of Dead Island 2 Ultimate Edition in October 2024, the primary focus for Dambuster Studios is now Dead Island 3. All developers are assigned to the project and once the Luna and Mac versions of Dead Island 2 are complete all of Dambuster’s QA team will also be assigned to Dead Island 3. Parts of the game are now in early production with feature, character, world and story design moving at pace. The current predicted release window for the project is Q1/2 2028."
While early 2028 feels like ages away at this stage, it's nice to know that more Dead Island is coming from Dambuster Studios. The former Homefront: The Revolution dev saved Dead Island 2 from the brink and finally released it in 2023, so a roughly five-year development cycle seems fairly conservative this time, all things considered.
Dead Island 2 also turned out to be a pretty fun zombie romp when it did launch a few years ago, and it became a pretty popular Xbox Game Pass addition in the months following as well. So, yeah, bring on Dead Island 3, we say!