Yesterday, Deep Silver announced they had parted ways with Yager without explaining why the Spec Ops: The Line developer would no longer be handling Dead Island 2. Such a move isn’t unheard of in this industry, but it’s uncommon, especially when the game in question is already three years into its development.
We still don’t have the full story, but a recent post on Yager’s Facebook page has narrowed it down to a difference in opinion regarding the game’s creative direction.
“Our YAGER team is fully committed to the development of AAA quality titles,” writes Timo Ullmann, managing director at Yager. “We work closely with international publishers and partners and have at the same time always remained an independent development studio. Our team is made of the best creative minds and tech specialists who all share a common identity. The team worked with enthusiasm to take Dead Island 2 to a new level of quality. However, YAGER and Deep Silver’s respective visions of the project fell out of alignment, which led to the decision that has been made. We’ll focus our current efforts on Dreadnought together with Six Foot and our publisher Grey Box as well as on new projects. More details will be disclosed soon. All I can reveal at this point is that gamescom will be awesome for Dreadnought.”
Sounds like Yager is over it.
