Dying Light 2

polonyc2

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Dying Light 2 was just announced during Microsoft's E3 2018 press conference, and, surprisingly, Chris Avellone is working with developer Techland to design the narrative...best known for his work in RPGs like Fallout, Avellone's involvement signals a significant evolution for the series, with decisions you make in the story having a significant impact on the surrounding city and its residents...

Dying Light 2 - E3 2018 Announcement Trailer...

 
This one looked surprisingly good. Looking forward to more updates on the game.
 
The original Dying Light had some really great features including among best parkour-style movement/combat and "VR-ish perspective w/body presence" I've seen, solid gameplay dynamics, online multiplayer co-op for the campaign, and most impressively - full Linux support! They also had an absolutely excellent post-launch content stream, with over a year of completely free updates, content heavy DLC including one actual full story Expansion and an "Enhanced Edition" style polish patch.

Dying Light 2 looks like they've retained a lot of what made the original unique and enjoyable and then built on top of it with new story potential and choices/depth. Hopefully it is really as deep as claimed and that those "hundreds of choices" are not simply hundreds of locations for the same "pick the red guys or blue guys" option which will divide up its little square of the map into red-guy-style or blue-guys-style benefits and detriments. Besides that, one thing I hope they can do this time around is offer a female character option - ideally fully voiced and for solo play, but at very least as far as mute selected appearances for co-op. The first Dying Light did well with co-op except that all users looked like main character (male) Crane and it wasn't until way later that users could even select some sort of appearance but even then they were all basically "masked dude #3" style. Providing a nice selection of character model/appearances, including female ones, would go a long way to polishing that end of the experience.

Aside from that, I can only hope that they continue to develop for Linux. Their excellent effort for the predecessor can't automatically be taken for granted, especially with the absolutely garbage way that Steam and other store metrics "count" a game purchase or playtime. Since purposefully supporting Linux and being one of the first AAA studio titles to do so natively and offer concurrent releases (as opposed to later released ports) they have a strong Linux-preferring audience ready for their second title, so hopefully they'll continue the commitment to the platform.
 
Am I the only one who felt disappointed by the reveal? I got no impression that this game will be anything like the first. The reason I liked the first game so much is it felt like being dropped into a zombie film from the '70s-'80s, from the aesthetic to sound to feeling of dread. I got none of that from this reveal. They focused entirely on the dynamic world and survivors and barely even showed the infected or night time. Has me worried.
 
Am I the only one who felt disappointed by the reveal? I got no impression that this game will be anything like the first. The reason I liked the first game so much is it felt like being dropped into a zombie film from the '70s-'80s, from the aesthetic to sound to feeling of dread. I got none of that from this reveal. They focused entirely on the dynamic world and survivors and barely even showed the infected or night time. Has me worried.

it does feel different but I'm also very excited about the possibilities of a dynamic gameworld and rpg type of elements...
 
Am I the only one who felt disappointed by the reveal? I got no impression that this game will be anything like the first. The reason I liked the first game so much is it felt like being dropped into a zombie film from the '70s-'80s, from the aesthetic to sound to feeling of dread. I got none of that from this reveal. They focused entirely on the dynamic world and survivors and barely even showed the infected or night time. Has me worried.
I had the opposite reaction - the world and environments looked intriguing.

I'm beyond over the whole zombie horde thing, it's just skull hammeringly dull at this point.
 
I had the opposite reaction - the world and environments looked intriguing.

I'm beyond over the whole zombie horde thing, it's just skull hammeringly dull at this point.

Exactly, the game needed a progression and for me this is a welcoming one. Zombies will always be zombies, that formula rarely changes if at all. It is the world we get to roam around in that holds my interest and I'm glad it's not just some static set piece.
 
For all of Dying Light's successes—the fluid first-person parkour, the gory combat, and rewarding if lightweight RPG systems—storytelling and worldbuilding were not one of them...and lead designer Tymon Smektala agrees...the hordes of infected aren't really the focus in Dying Light 2..."This is not just a zombie game where zombies are chasing you and that's it," Smektala explains..."We want to tell people that, hey, this is quite different and this is bigger...We're not talking that much about the infected or the zombies because we want the players to realize this is more about the humans this time around."...

https://www.pcgamer.com/dying-light...promises-to-fix-the-first-games-biggest-flaw/

seems weird to even call this Dying Light 2 as it almost seems like a different game altogether...
 
For all of Dying Light's successes—the fluid first-person parkour, the gory combat, and rewarding if lightweight RPG systems—storytelling and worldbuilding were not one of them...and lead designer Tymon Smektala agrees...the hordes of infected aren't really the focus in Dying Light 2..."This is not just a zombie game where zombies are chasing you and that's it," Smektala explains..."We want to tell people that, hey, this is quite different and this is bigger...We're not talking that much about the infected or the zombies because we want the players to realize this is more about the humans this time around."...

https://www.pcgamer.com/dying-light...promises-to-fix-the-first-games-biggest-flaw/

seems weird to even call this Dying Light 2 as it almost seems like a different game altogether...
That is what I was afraid of when seeing this revealed at E3. Guess I can scratch this one off of my wishlist.
 
I guess I may be in the minority but I liked the first one and I may end up liking this one even more. Hoping for the best.
 
I guess I may be in the minority but I liked the first one and I may end up liking this one even more. Hoping for the best.
My son and I are having a blast playing co-op Dying Light. Can't wait for DL2!
 
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New article on Windows Central. Has a single paragraph talking about the infected. Really getting on my nerves that we have seen nothing at all except playing errand soy boy to a bunch of human factions.

https://www.windowscentral.com/dying-light-2-preview

Dying Light 2 puts an emphasis on the human factions, but that doesn't mean the virus from the first game has been completely wiped out. You might remember the more powerful infected monsters from the first game, which only emerged at night. Only these more powerful photosensitive zombies remain, and during the day, they stay hidden inside various buildings and underground locations, hiding from the sunlight. Dying Light 2 calls these areas "nests," and due to being filled with sleeping zombies, they often contain the best loot, since local bandits and survivors are too afraid to risk entering. If you brave the nests, you'll have to creep silently, aiming your flash light away from the horde, or risk being torn apart very rapidly.
 
New article on Windows Central. Has a single paragraph talking about the infected. Really getting on my nerves that we have seen nothing at all except playing errand soy boy to a bunch of human factions.

https://www.windowscentral.com/dying-light-2-preview

Dying Light 2 puts an emphasis on the human factions, but that doesn't mean the virus from the first game has been completely wiped out. You might remember the more powerful infected monsters from the first game, which only emerged at night. Only these more powerful photosensitive zombies remain, and during the day, they stay hidden inside various buildings and underground locations, hiding from the sunlight. Dying Light 2 calls these areas "nests," and due to being filled with sleeping zombies, they often contain the best loot, since local bandits and survivors are too afraid to risk entering. If you brave the nests, you'll have to creep silently, aiming your flash light away from the horde, or risk being torn apart very rapidly.

sounds like they're keeping that aspect from the first game but the emphasis is now on a big open world witch choices and consequences...I like this new direction
 
First Dying Light was so underrated. This one looks great. If they take a bribe from Epic to let the game die on EGS then it's dead to me though.

First dying light was so overrated imo, I got bored quickly having to find new weapons every 2 mobs you kill due to them breaking. I had to look up to see if there were actually any guns in the game, maybe if I would gotten one of those early on I might still be playing.

I want to kill zombies not avoid them.
 
First dying light was so overrated imo, I got bored quickly having to find new weapons every 2 mobs you kill due to them breaking. I had to look up to see if there were actually any guns in the game, maybe if I would gotten one of those early on I might still be playing.

I want to kill zombies not avoid them.

While I do recall that frustration early on, it was a key part of the early game resource management. You were intended to feel like you were low on resources, had to get into combat smartly, and make choices when and where to go out to seek upgrades or resources. As the game progressed you got more powerful both in terms of skill points/levels, it felt notably different as you would use ranged weaponry and much more. While I can understand not liking it early on, I do believe it was in service of storyline and mechanics - a title like Dead Rising 3 would be better for someone wanting to mow down zombies en masse even from the start. Then again, Dying Light has several mods (along with just plain turning down the difficulty; its default difficulty level is way tougher than most expect) that can deal with particular issues like that. Oh, and I'm not sure if you played the "Enhanced Edition", but not unlike The Witcher titles, Dying Light Enhanced Edition not only includes the season pass (which offers an expansion campaign, as well as other DLC) but the initial version of the game was patched/updated significantly.

This is not to say Dying Light is perfect, but I think it is easily the best of the "First person zombie adventure" titles that I've played (ie Dead Island series etc). I do wish they would have offered multiple avatars for multiplayer, including a female option though, as the game can really be at its best in multiplayer. I'm interested in the second game and hope to see it not only built upon the older title and improved, but also again releasing for Linux.

Edit: I do hope they don't focus too much on that Bad Blood battle royale style title and/or let it take time or resources away from Dying Light 2.

Then again it could be worse if they do something foolish like agree to release exclusively on the Epic Store. That would be a real pity, especially given how their titles have fared best of all on Steam . I can recall how Dying Light was an example of Steam's developer assets given the version of the game released elsewhere ie (GOG etc) were rarely updated as quickly and lacked the integrated multiplayer that was present on Steam at the time, instead split off into a segregated alternative for awhile as GOG did not at the time have a client that would interact with the Steamworks API.
 
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I like that the developer is not just giving us more of the same as the first game...this has GOTY potential...hopefully a release date is announced at E3
 
I loved Dying Light and that's not really my genre. I've played through completely a couple times. Looking forward to this.
 
I loved Dying Light and that's not really my genre. I've played through completely a couple times. Looking forward to this.

I'm in the same boat. Normally don't like this type of game, but I loved Dying Light.
 
The one thing I didn't like about Dying Light was that guns were completely pointless. They weren't powerful enough to offset the absolute nightmare that ensued if you ever happened to use them.
 
The one thing I didn't like about Dying Light was that guns were completely pointless. They weren't powerful enough to offset the absolute nightmare that ensued if you ever happened to use them.
Design decision. Always feeling a little underpowered maintained that feeling of dread as you moved around. Being able to rambo the whole city with assault rifles would have made it somewhat pointless.
 
Design decision. Always feeling a little underpowered maintained that feeling of dread as you moved around. Being able to rambo the whole city with assault rifles would have made it somewhat pointless.

I understand why, but I guess my point is that if they were going to be nerfed that hard, they shouldn't have even bothered putting guns in the game at all. Once you get a bunch of high-level melee weapons, there's no reason to use anything else.

Also to that end, I never really felt underpowered other than at night. During the day it was a cakewalk most of the time.
 
I'm really looking forward to Dying Light 2. I imagine I'll spend a solid couple hundred hours or more playing it.

The one thing I didn't like about Dying Light was that guns were completely pointless. They weren't powerful enough to offset the absolute nightmare that ensued if you ever happened to use them.

There was actually a trick to the guns. They peaked in damage when your character is power rank 5. From that point they decrease in damage until you reach power rank 9, at which point they are at base damage and remain there. So, if you want to get a more powerful gun you need to acquire it at exactly power rank 5, not earlier and not later. A max power gun combined with headshots will kill things quickly. Even then, though, it may not be worth the trouble of all the noise.

The aspect of the game that "broke" it for me was the grappling hook. I loved the parkour and having to run and climb all over to evade zombies, especially at night. Once you get the grappling hook traveling around becomes trivially easy. It took all the fun out of it for me. I also felt the risk of falling became minimal at that point, except in a few spots that were part of mandatory action sequences.
 
Really impressive. I'm a bit surprised with how long it is taking, but perhaps it will be worth it! The additional parkour, varying story paths , both human and zombie enemy focus all look great. I expect we'll hear more about certain factors soon such as player advancement. THere are a couple of things still up in the air though I'd like to see confirmed

A) Steam. These days, I just want to be sure that it won't be Epic exclusive and in fact will release on Steam. I hope the developers don't take that Faustian bargain...

B) Multiplayer - The presence of a single named protagonist in the story mode has me worried that like DL1 this will be another "people play as 4 Cranes" setup. I really think they should find another way around that, as the first game had the basis of a great drop-in/drop-out co-op, but some rough edges. I hope there's at least one option for a female playable character , among other player skins/differentiation. Ideally, with this extra time it would be nice if they either allowed for players to choose the gender of their protagonist (ie Aidan if male, Ayla if female etc) with the same lines/choices etc... or perhaps allowing players to inhabit multiple player characters during the story, each with their own skill-sets and benefits. I can see something like the host of a given game being their Aiden/Ayla, but depending on the choices made and where they are at the game, others who joiin could pick from several characters, male and female alike, to support? Players could still take some of the loot/XP/crafting stuff they learn back into their "main" game, perhaps boosted depending what character they're playing (ie One guy is known for bows and light bladed weapons, so as they use them they gain XP at a 2X rate, another woman has enhanced parkour and martial arts skill so those gain twice the XP etc) . Also, if there's a much major differentiation based on choice as is shown here, a mechanic like this could allow players to see (and perhaps get loot from) paths other than their own main campaign - a useful element especially if the choices are numerous and not just 3-4 setpieces. In any event I really hope they put some thought into the role of mutliplayer, various avatars etc..as repeat of the original would be disappointing - if they're going to do multiplayer at all! If they absolutely can't balance or otherwise do multiplayer right, I'd rather them go without (at least on launch).

C) Linux - One of the great things about DL1 was its Linux compatibility. They were one of the few major AAA's who did an in-house Linux version and I have to give Techland credit. I can only hope they'll do so again in their release on Steam. Linux support pretty much guarantees my purchase given what I've seen so far!
 
Dying Light 2 Will be Supported for Up to Four Years, Offers Over 100 Hours of Content

Few games have received better post-launch support than the original Dying Light...for four years developer Techland has continued to push out major expansions like The Following and numerous smaller content updates, fostering a very dedicated community in the process...so, can we expect the same from Dying Light 2?

Dying Light 2 lead game designer Tymon Smektala vowed the game will be supported just as long as the original...

https://wccftech.com/dying-light-2-4-years-support-100-hours-content/
 
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