It's that time of the year again, where gaming fans get their patience awarded with the biggest announcements of this year and beyond. This year the festivities started at the end of May, with Dying Light 2 revealing a new trailer and a release date of December 7, 2021. The announcement coming around this time wasn't a huge surprise, despite developer Techland facing misconduct charges and delaying the game indefinitely at one point. However, the game has faced far less trouble than other zombie games.

Dead Island 2, for instance, was delayed indefinitely and has yet to be given anything besides an announcement trailer and a little bit of gameplay shown at E3 2014. Originally being developed by Techland, it was pitched and given to Yager Development, which is responsible for all of the media that's been shown so far. The game has been in development for years, but no new content has been shown since the first studio was dropped from the project. Due to its origin at the same developer and similar gameplay mechanics, Dying Light 2 releasing before Dead Island 2 says a lot about the latter's prospects.

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While Dying Light 2 developer Techland has had to deal with a number of sexual misconduct allegations over the last few years, and had some tumultuous development. No one really knows when development on the sequel started, but it can be assumed that The Following was developed alongside it to test out some features that Techland is putting in the next, like the nest system. After being delayed indefinitely a little over a year ago, the game's new release date was just announced for the end of this year. This is a lot better than some games that have been stuck in developmental limbo for a while.

Dead Island 2, on the other hand, has not fared so well in its development. The game was originally thought to be developed by Techland, but it was revealed that it had been working on the first Dying Light instead. Yager Development had pitched the idea for Dead Island 2 to Deep Silver and was given the title until it was taken away in July 2015. From there it would be passed to a couple of new developers, Sumo Digital and then Dambuster Studios. It's been over 5 years since fans were given any new gameplay footage or screenshots, so many are skeptical about the prospect of Dead Island 2 at all.

Many in the gaming community had written off Dead Island 2 as dead years ago, before the announcements it was still under development. It's been a nearly yearly occurrence that Dead Island 2 has been confirmed to still be in development, with no proof to show the extent of what that might look like. This has left some fans skeptical about whether or not the game will ever be able to escape the developmental purgatory that it now finds itself in. If there's no news or release date during this year's E3, it might be time to start reconsidering those Dead Island 2 pre-orders.

Dying Light 2 and Dead Island 2 are similar games at their roots, but have faced very different developments. Dying Light 2 has hit a few hiccups along its journey, but nothing like what Dead Island 2 has been put through in the last decade. While the Dying Light sequel was recently announced for the end of this year, Dead Island 2 hasn't received a cinematic, gameplay trailer, or a release date since 2014. While anything can happen, the odds for a release of Dead Island 2 seem to be shrinking by the day.

Dying Light 2 is confirmed to be in development for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, and Dead Island 2 is in development.

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