Dead Island 2 Development Resumes With LittleBigPlanet 3 Studio

The development of Dead Island 2 has been taken over by Sumo Digital, the UK studio behind Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed and LittleBigPlanet 3.

Publisher Deep Silver originally tapped Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager Development for the sequel, but the two parted ways in July 2015, citing a difference in vision as the reason.

In a statement to MCV, Koch Media--parent company of Deep Silver--said bringing in Sumo Digital "made perfect sense."

"Sumo showed so much understanding of the brand, had creative ideas and an excellent vision that was aligned with our own," said chief executive Klemens Kundratitz.

"It just made perfect sense for us to move the project to them. We will reveal more details at a later stage, but for now I'd like to say that we are obviously super excited about the progress that we are making with them."

In addition to LittleBigPlanet 3 and Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing, Sumo Digital has also had a hand in the development of Disney Infinity 3.0 and Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious. It is also contributing to Microsoft's Crackdown 3 and will create the PC version of Rock Band 4 if it is successfully crowdfunded.

"It's an honour to be charged with the evolution of such an important franchise in Deep Silver's catalogue," said Paul Porter, chief operating officer of Sumo.

"We're looking forward to exceeding fan expectation with an ambitious design that we're confident will take bone-crunching, visceral, zombie action to a whole new level."

Dead Island 2 was officially announced during Sony's E3 2014 press conference for PlayStation 4. The game is also coming to Xbox One and PC, but its beta will be launched first on PS4.

Original Dead Island 2 developer Yager Productions, which is a sub-division withinYager Developments, filled for insolvency following the dissolution of its partnership with Deep Silver.