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Ratings Board Leaks Another ‘Dead Island’ Spin-off
Deep Silver has made numerous attempts to bring Dead Island to a wider audience, and none have been particularly successful. That’s not to say the string of pseudo-sequels and spin-offs we’ve seen since the series made its debut half a decade ago haven’t built up any momentum, because they most definitely have, but in a general downhill direction.
Dead Island could use a savior, but it might have to make do with something called Dead Island: Retro Revenge if we’re to believe a listing spotted earlier this week on the Australian and Brazilian ratings boards for a Mature-rated computer game with “online interactivity” and “bloody violence.”
The listing also mentions San Diego-based Empty Clip Games as the developer, and PC, PS4 and Xbox One as the target platforms. Empty Clip hasn’t shipped a game since the release of their stylish shoot ’em up Symphony in 2012, but an update on their website mentions multiple game announcements to look forward to this summer. One of those games may be Retro Revenge.
I have serious doubts that another spin-off is what this series needs right now, but I will absolutely be rooting for this game to prove me wrong.
Riptide would’ve made for a better expansion than the barely budget-priced — it was $50 — Dead Island 1.25 we ended up getting, and since the only decent spin-off went offline in October, we’re left with Escape Dead Island, and that game was so bad it made me angry.
At this point, I can’t tell if Deep Silver genuinely wants to make a good Dead Island game, or if they recognized its death rattles and are desperate to milk that cash cow before it tips over.
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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