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Despite a fair share of problems, Dead Island has apparently done quite well for Deep Silver after debuting in September and snagging a top spot in the NPD charts. Last we heard, Dead Island shipped one million units to retail in North America in its first week and was expected to ship two million units worldwide by week's end.

Aubrey Norris, Deep Silver's manager of marketing and PR, has revealed to Game Informer that Dead Island has shipped three million units worldwide. "Dead Island has sold very, very well over the holiday season and we are thrilled that it has sustained a robust level of sell-through since launch in September," she said. Norris didn't divulge any sell-through numbers -- a much better indicator of the game's overall success.

One of the biggest trailers of 2011 was Dead Island. The advertisement for the zombie game featured a haunting tune playing over the last moments of terrified family's life. It set the Internet on fire. Last week, the trailer for The Last of Us debuted and featured a similar, serious vibe and even a slo-mo part. We decided to mash-up the two touching trailers. Enjoy...

#deadisland Zombie paradise action game Dead Island may have been out since early September, but it's only now that the Germans at the wonderfully-named Federal Department of Media Harmful to Young Persons have got around to banning it. More »

While "Bloodbath Arena" remains an effective caption for the gruesome state of Dead Island, it's also a specific add-on coming to PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 22. The DLC was delayed for a short stint after developer Techland decided to spend more time polishing the main game -- a process which was still ongoing with the release of last week's major console patch.

Bloodbath Arena is free to customers who pre-ordered the game, and costs $10 or 800 MS Points for everyone else. It offers four new arenas for single-player or co-op play, and challenges participants to execute and outlive multiple waves of zombies. So, it's a survival mode in which you face off against a constantly replenished force of snarling enemies. You could call it "Mob Mode" or something like "Enough Enemies to Warrant a Collective Noun Mode."

Deep Silver has announced the official release date for Dead Island's Bloodbath Arena DLC. The pack was originally set to launch shortly after the release of the game but will now be coming next week, on November 22nd...

Dead Island's harsh treatment of necrotic former vacationers isn't without limit -- which is why you'll be happy to learn that the game's level cap is being raised to 60 with a new patch rolling out to consoles today.

In addition to stability and interface adjustments, developer Techland promises the patch will add a few more things to the tropical death-trap: weapon crates now contain "improved rewards," kicking now expends stamina (realism!) and Purna can now lug around 50 percent more ammo (realism?). Enemy levels can also be adjusted for different co-op players independently, in case you get stuck with that idiot who always goes back for the dog. You'll find the full list of adjustments after the break.

Boy, it must be nice to have access to a break once in a while. The fierce hostility aimed at pale, shambling and barely communicative humanoids on an island resort is exactly why we never feel comfortable taking a holiday.

A new patch is coming to the console versions of Dead Island this week. The patch will be available for PlayStation 3 on November 9th, and for Xbox 360 one day later, on November 10th...

Dead Island developer Techland filed for a trademark on something called "Dead World" recently, prompting speculation that plans for a sequel to the open-world zombie RPG were beginning to unfurl. Techland declined to comment on the matter, though the trademark is legit.

Dead Island shambled up the charts when it was released in September, thanks to plenty of zombie buzz and that popular trailer (never mind the less-than-glowing critical response). A title like "Dead World" hints that the game will take on a slightly larger scale than just an island resort, but we'll have to wait and see until the company decides to make any official announcements.

Techland may have inadvertently revealed the title of Dead Island's sequel. The developer has filed a trademark for the title Dead World, leading to speculation that a new Dead Island game could be on the way...

Dead Island’s PC launch was a bit of a messy business, which is why we here at Fortress Shotgun gave a solemn, grim-jawed nod upon hearing that devs Techland had decided to prioritise patching it over squeaking out downloadable content. The latter was delayed in favour of the former, and today we get a peek at which of their freeform zombie game’s guts they’ve been performing surgery on.

A few of the major fuel sources for the angry tank have been successfully identified and removed, including but not limited to: weapon duping, offline mode, savegame borking, disabling unwanted voice chat and, rather sadly, floating zombie corpses (well, re-corpses). I’ll miss you, lads.(more…)

#deadisland ElMangosto's special lady certainly knows the way to get him to pull his weight around the house: Dead Island and boobs. More »

Fixed running game on Steam in offline mode Fixed damaged saves when a player has more than 190 items in inventory (weapon or stacked items, counting in items from Jins storage and player inventory). Corrupted savegames will be recovered when possible.Fixed problems with unlocking "There and back again" with progress 72/72Fixed duplicating weapons:When throwing and dropping at one timeWhen dropping items from inventory
Optimized scanning for friends-process, to decrease lobby server workload Fixed random freezes when playing 4 players coop no longer appearFixed issues when using medkits from inventory menuStacking items issue solved: miscellaneous items to 9999, medkits and alcohol to 30 instead of 10.Added the option to disable voice chat in game.Limited Jins storage capacity to 150Fixed: disappearing items when there is no place in inventory and a player tries to get an item from Jins storageImproved trading: items will be removed from the smallest stack instead of a random one.Fixed problems with corrupted profiles, which caused the game to start with black screen and freeze.Fixed levitating zombies after killingFixed not being able to show quest details in quest menu using Xbox controller

Dead Island's first bite of DLC, delayed so that developer Techland could focus on more pressing issues following launch, will arrive in mid-November. Game Informer received the latest release window, reiterating that the DLC will be free to those who pre-ordered Dead Island at GameStop and $10 for all other meatbags.

The "Bloodbath Arena" DLC, a wave-based survival mode, adds four new areas and some weapons, and allows players to transfer XP into the core game.

#fineart For a game that, when it wasn't paying big bucks for moody trailers wasn't afraid to use rotting chicks in bikinis to sell it, this Dead Island concept art is surprisingly free of buxom walking corpses. Sorry. More »

When Dead Island’s Bloodbath Arena DLC was announced I jested that it might be delayed ’til 2017. Well, I’m guessing we’ll see it before 2017, but the content has indeed been delayed. Rather than concentrating on finishing up the horde mode and extra equipment that the DLC’s set to offer, Techland are concentrating on squashing the bugs in the core game. Releasing a game with technical issues is no good thing but at least they’re working to fix things, which is far more important than shipping what sounds like a fairly negligible expansion. Using my powers of sarcastic clairvoyancy, my next prediction is that the recently announced Dead Island movie, if it does ever materialise, will not in any way resemble the video below.

(more…)

#deadisland Sept. 30 has come and gone, meaning "Bloodbath Arena," the multiplayer DLC due to those who preordered Dead Island (and those willing to pay $10 after the fact) is officially delayed. It More »

The internet is littered with the rotting corpse-stories of ‘game x optioned for movie’, so many of such headlines failing to come true, Hollywood executives’ frothing plans simply ending up mired in cinematic red tape for years to come or Uwe Boll somehow getting his hands on the license. Perhaps Dead Island is destined for a similar fate, today bringing news that Lionsgate plan to bring its foul-mouthed tale of holidayers versus zombies to the silver screen – but the hullabaloo over that trailer might sharply increase the odds of something actually happening.(more…)

#deadisland It doesn't get any more official than an announcement from Lionsgate motion picture group president Joe Drake; there will be a Dead Island movie, and it sounds like it will be the first major motion picture based on a video game trailer. More »

Though reports from February of a planned film adaptation of Techland's then yet-to-be-released zombie title Dead Island were struck down by the studio, legitimate plans for the movie were revealed earlier today. Lionsgate announced in a press release that it's currently in the early development stage of a Dead Island feature, with producers Sean Daniel (Tombstone, Dazed and Confused) and Stefan Sonnenfeld attached.

The press release mentions the game's first, Cannes-winning trailer will serve as the film's "primary creative inspiration," adding that the movie will adopt the commercial's "focus on human emotion, family ties and non-linear storytelling." Also, it's a horror movie from Lionsgate, so we're betting you'll get to see the insides of hastily removed human body parts.

Finally, Hollywood has cut out the middle man and is simply making movies based on independently produced video game trailers.

The movie rights to Dead Island, Techland and Deep Silver's tropical zombie nightmare game, have been haggled over for either months, or years, depending on who you ask. Studio interest peaked when the publisher put out that now infamous teaser trailer of a CG family becoming zombie brunch in backward slow-motion, but rights disputes going back long before that trailer's conception have muddied the waters, seemingly preventing us, the game-loving masochists who actually watch movies based on video games, from seeing a 90 minute version of that trailer starring real actors.

However, according to Deadline, the dust has finally settled on that rights dispute, and Lionsgate has come out on top. Lionsgate has more than its share of popular horror franchises under its banner, including Saw, Hostel, and The Last Exorcism. It also produced the Oscar Best Picture winner Crash, for whatever that's worth.

While the story simply states that the rights were acquired for Dead Island, the quote from Lionsgate rep Joe Drake lends a good bit of credence to the theory that the only reason they care about this thing is because of that trailer, which became such a massive viral sensation overnight.

“Like the hundreds of journalists and millions of fans who were so passionate and vocal about the Dead Island trailer, we too were awestruck,” said Lionsgate’s Joe Drake. “This is exactly the type of property we’re looking to adapt at Lionsgate: it’s sophisticated, edgy, and a true elevation of a genre that we know and love. It also has built in brand recognition around the world, and franchise potential.”

There you have it. Get ready for Night of the Living Dead meets Memento meets National Lampoon's Vacation. Actually, come to think of it, that doesn't sound half bad...

Tropical zombie action game Dead Island is set to become a movie. This morning, Lionsgate announced a deal with the game's publisher Deep Silver. That famous trailer, released in February 2011, seems to have done the trick in persuading Hollywood money to get behind the title. More Dead Isla...

Dead Island features graphic nudity, a new YouTube video has revealed...

#deadisland Intrepid videographer HazardHeresy noticed that when leggy survivor Xian struggles to her feet in Dead Island, you can get a glimpse of her landing strip. No, really, she's going commando. Fast forward that video past the stupid-long preamble to 1:53 and you'll see what he's talking about—helpfully zoomed in close-up. More »

#deadisland There are awesome ways to start your morning, but they probably aren't jampacked into just three minutes, like this Dead Island re-enactment from Chris Cropper's Going Nowhere Show. More »

Time for another one of our in theory regular but in practice highly irregular comparisons of the last week’s top ten best-selling PC games on Steam, and at UK retail. Obviously there are all manner of ways in which these are not fair or entirely meaningful comparisons, not least in that Steam’s metrics can tend towards the cryptic, that Steam’s includes pre-orders but UK retail (via Chart-Track) doesn’t and that it’s laughably hard to find many PC games on British high streets these days, but it’s always fun/horrifying to get a flavour for the stark differences between what people are buying digitally and what plastic boxes their attention is caught by.(more…)

The various and sundry niggling issues that plagued Dead Island upon its highly anticipated launch appear to be on Techland's hit list -- the game recently received another patch on the Xbox 360. According to the game's official Twitter account, updates include "improvements to matchmaking, AI, quest and escort fixes, visual glitch fixes and a ton more."

We encountered most of those issues during our time with the game, so we're pleased as punch to hear they've been remedied. If you're rocking the PC or PS3 version of the game, don't get too blinded by jealousy. The Dead Island account also tweeted that PS3 and PC updates are on the way.

#deadisland Dead Island's expansion packs, both announced and not, may be hitting later than planned as developers refocus their energy on fixing the game, Deep Silver tells Kotaku. More »

Dead Island, the new first-person zombie-RPG slaughterfest that IGN gave an 8.0 is apparently doing well commercially. In fact, it's doing very well...

#deadisland This is sort of known, but I thought still worth talking among you fellow (few?) Dead Island fans. More »

#deadisland Love it for its body parts, looting, insanity and amazing settings, hate it for its ludicrous bugs and iffy graphics, either way you owe it to yourself to at least check Dead Island out. More »