Dead Island 2 is a 2023 action role-playing game developed by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver.

Announced in 2014, Dead Island 2 endured a lengthy development and saw several changes in the studios attached to the project.

It is a procedurally generated dismemberment system which can create weapon-appropriate wounds on zombies, allowing players to break their skin, bones and internal organs.

[11] About 15 years after the events of Dead Island,[12] the US military is forced to put Los Angeles under a full quarantine restricted zone due to a new and stronger zombie outbreak.

As Los Angeles is being quarantined, six individuals (dubbed "Slayers") board one of the last evacuation flights out of the city: hustler Bruno (voiced by Jay Rincon),[13] mechanic Carla (Carolina Ravassa),[13] retail worker Dani (Michelle Fox),[13] firefighter-themed stripper Ryan (Ronan Summers),[13] athlete Amy (Skye Bennett),[13] and stuntman Jacob (Okezie Morro).

They manage to make their way to the home of one of the crash survivors, actress Emma Jaunt (Hannah Steele),[13] who reluctantly shelters them despite their infection.

With the Slayers still intent on escaping the city, they head to the nearest evacuation center, to find it overrun with infected.

They recover a radio and contact Dr. Reuben Reed (Colin McFarlane),[13] a CDC doctor who asks them to come to his safe haven in Santa Monica to use their immunity to synthesize a cure.

The Slayers are then sent to find Reed's missing daughter, Tisha (Jessica Hayles),[13] who is working with a team of hackers investigating mysterious encrypted data being exchanged by the CDC.

While fighting an infected test subject, the Slayers succumb to their feral instincts and attack Tisha, who apparently kills them, only to be revived by Konradt.

Konradt explains that she, her followers, and the Slayers are a new species of humans dubbed "Numen" who can assimilate the infection, called the Autophage.

The Slayers return to confront Reed, only to find that he has fled with Tisha to a lab on Hollywood Boulevard and that he was responsible for the city-wide Autophage outbreak.

The Slayers persist and confront Reed, who admits that he released the Autophage in the city in order to filter out Numen, explaining that the Autophage is not a plague but a "clock" fundamental to the human genome that is hard-coded to wipe them all out and turn them into zombies at a predetermined time, but also turn one in every million humans into Numen.

As Emma, Sam, and Patton escape Los Angeles, Konradt and her followers watch over the Slayers as they fight another horde of zombies.

Upon entering, they find the Haus is the headquarters of a doomsday cult whose leader Konstantin foresaw the zombie outbreak and tried to prepare them for it.

In order to enter the Haus' inner sanctum, the Slayers gather the heads of three of the cult's leaders: Vincent, Veronique, and Yong-Ho, who are all cybernetically enhanced and can survive in their decapitated state.

Konstantin reveals he had arranged for the Slayers to get infected with the Autophage because he predicted they would play a key role in saving in the Ark.

The Slayers clear out the infection from the Haus to save the Ark, and as a reward, Konstantin gives them special cybernetic implants.

Techland was originally set to develop Dead Island 2, but decided to work on Dying Light with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment instead.

According to the presented content, the game was to be set in California, including landmarks such as the Santa Monica Pier and Hollywood, as well as many locations in San Francisco.

Furthermore, Deep Silver stated that the game was to feature four playable characters,[14] though only two were shown at the Gamescom Demo.

Deep Silver will also release the Ultimate Edition, which bundles the base game with all its downloadable content packs, on the same day.