Zombies are considered to be the most overused enemies within video games, but Techland found a way to revive the genre by incorporating parkour, RPG elements, breakable weapons and an open world when it released Dying Light in January.
The updated formula resonated with fans, as Dying Light was the best selling game in January. The trend continued during February sales with Dying Light charting as the third best selling piece of software, just behind Evolve and far ahead of the Sony-exclusive The Order: 1886 during their debut months.
With an overwhelming response from players these past two months, Techland announced that Dying Light is their most successful title to date with worldwide sales over 3.2 million units. And, in an effort to better highlight that large player base can accomplish within the game, Techland created the following infographic:
Techland originally planned to release Dying Light during the fall 2014 holiday schedule, but the move to January 2015 obviously worked in its favor. Dying Light is a solid game, albeit with a steep learning curve and mindless fetch quests prevent it from being a masterpiece, that released during a relatively quiet window for the industry.
By avoiding the overly crowded holiday schedule, which typically hosts the likes of Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and other triple-A titles, Dying Light was able to differentiate itself from the smaller, downloadable titles that make the bulk of January releases. With no other marquee titles until late February, Dying Light was able to generate good word of mouth and positive momentum from fans and as a result it became Techland’s fastest selling title.
With the success of Dying Light worldwide, gamers can expect to see more developers switch their release date to a more open window. In fact, Rocksteady has already implemented this approach with Batman: Arkham Knight, which releases in the normally barren summer window.
Even though Dying Light sold well, there is still one Dying Light copy out there that fans are curious if Techland will be able to sell. We're, of course, talking about the $386,000 ‘My Apocalypse’ special edition that comes with, among other things, a zombie shelter.
Are you one of the 3.2 million who picked up Dying Light? Would you have bought Dying Light if it released in November 2014 still?
Source: VG24/7