Sumo Digital has been tasked with developing Dead Island 2 after publisher Deep Silver pulled Yager off of the project back in July 2015.

According to Koch Media CEO Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, Sumo showed a lot of understanding of the Dead Island brand, provided creative ideas as well as a vision that was aligned with its own for Dead Island 2. “It just made perfect sense for us to move the project to them,” Kundratitz told MCV. “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.”

Sumo Digital has worked on a number of successful franchises, including Disney Infinity, LittleBigPlanet, Forza, and is currently working on Microsoft’s upcoming Crackdown 3.

“It’s an honor to be charged with the evolution of such an important franchise in Deep Silver’s catalogue,” said Sumo COO Paul Porter. “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 is still expected to release some time in 2016, which we hope is still the case as it’s still one of our most anticipated games of the year.