Deep Silver is expanding the Dead Island universe again with the announcement of Escape Dead Island, a third-person action game that promises to reveal the origins of the zombie outbreak:

Escape Dead Island is a survival mystery that follows the story of Cliff Calo, who sets sail to document the unexplained events rumored to have happened on Banoi. Arriving on the island of Narapela, part of the Banoi archipelago, he finds that not everything is as it seems. Haunted by deja vu, Cliff will have to make sense of it all throughout the entire game – again and again. This story-driven adventure lets players delve into the Dead Island universe and unravel the origins of the zombie outbreak. Escape is only the beginning…

Melee combat will still be a big part of Escape Dead Island, but players will also have to fight for their sanity as Cliff suffers from delusions represented by “unique visual styles” when he is experiencing a break with reality. The debut trailer above gives us a taste of these delusions by depicting one of Cliff’s attacks with black-and-white flashes. If this sounds similar to a beloved GameCube game from 2002, that’s by design. Deep Silver’s Community Manager, Maurice Tan, wrote on Twitter that he sees “a bit of Eternal Darkness” in Escape Dead Island.

Escape Dead Island is in development at Fatshark and will serve as a bridge between Dead Island and Dead Island 2. It will be released this Fall for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.