Dambuster Confirms Dead Island 3 Development for 2028

Dambuster Studios has confirmed that the third mainline entry in the Dead Island zombie action-RPG series is in active development, with a targeted release in the first half of 2028.

The announcement comes from the studio's recently released 2024 financial report, which outlines Dead Island 3 as the team's primary focus following the October launch of the Dead Island 2 Ultimate Edition. All developers at the UK-based studio, a subsidiary of publisher Deep Silver, are now assigned to the project. Once work on the Luna and Mac ports of Dead Island 2 concludes, the quality assurance team will join them as well. "Parts of the game are now in early production with feature, character, world and story design moving at pace," the report states. The predicted release window is the first two quarters of 2028.

This marks a faster development cycle compared to its predecessor. Dead Island 2, released in April 2023 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC, took nearly a decade to reach players after its 2014 reveal. The project changed hands multiple times: initially developed by Techland, the studio behind the 2011 original and its 2013 expansion Riptide, it...