The sighting of a Dead Island 2 pre-order listing leads to speculation that the game will make an official appearance at E3 2019. There are suggestions that publisher Deep Silver will use the annual industry event to announce the Dead Island 2 release date.

On the Microsoft Store, fans of zombie action-adventure series Dead Island can now pre-order Dead Island 2 for Xbox One. The listing shows a price of $59.99 and has a description that reads "Welcome to Dead Island, where Paradise meets Hell." The listing also says that the Dead Island 2 release date is December 31, 2019, though this is most probably a placeholder date ahead of the official announcement. The listing does allow fans to successfully place a pre-order for the game.

Dead Island 2 was announced in 2014 and there haven't been many positive announcements about the game since. This makes it highly unusual for a product listing to pop up now. The product listing likely isn't an accident as it's on the Microsoft Store and with Microsoft being a platform holder, it is in the best position to know when a game is about to be revealed, or re-revealed as it may be with Dead Island 2.

Dead Island 2 Microsoft Store listing

The product listing isn't the only suggestion that the game may show up at E3 2019. Nearly a year ago, Deep Silver confirmed that the game hadn't been cancelled and then five months ago, it was revealed that  Dead Island 2may have switched developers again.

Last month, the CEO of THQ Nordic, Deep Silver's parent company, said that Dead Island 2 hasn't been cancelled. It's rarely a good sign when a company has to confirm that a game is still in development because fans haven't heard from it in so long, but this does mean that Dead Island 2 is still moving ahead.

A leak of THQ Nordic's plans for E3 also suggested that the company is working on some big announcements for some of its most popular series. Dead Island 2 wasn't one of the games on the list from the leaked E3 plans, however, if THQ Nordic (the parent company of Dead Island 2 publisher Deep Silver) is bringing some of its other big series then it may want to bring the zombie adventure game along for the ride too. E3 officially begins next week, so if the Dead Island 2 release date is going to be announced then, fans don't have very long to find out.

Dead Island 2 currently lacks an official release date, but it is expected to launch on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Source: Microsoft Store