Dead Island has sold a whopping five million copies

Dead Island

has managed to sell-through over five million copies worldwide since its release in September 2011, Deep Silver announced today. Despite a lukewarm reception and a few major PR blunders, Dead Island has maintained an "exceptional strong sales rate" in all channels, retail and digital versions included.

"While others focus on ever-increasing development budgets and driving brand messages via ballooning marketing expenditures, Deep Silver stands for hitting the zeitgeist, innovation and fresh gameplay. Dead Island has an incredibly active and enthusiastic community, and we are thrilled to welcome the five millionth player to the world of Banoi. This once again proves that venturing into new waters in terms of games publishing does matter for success and that even at the end of a console cycle new IPs can be created and nurtured into lasting franchises," says Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media.

Looking ahead, the franchise is set to receive its next installment with Dead Island Riptide. Its story is a continuation of the incidents taking place in the original game and adds many new features, some of which were previewed in the latest developer walkthrough. Like its predecessor, Dead Island Riptide has also been in the news for all the wrong reasons.