Dying Light 2 developer Techland recently revealed the game's 2023 roadmap, which includes major overhauls to the physical of the combat system, the routine of the nighttime experience, and the flow of its parkour. All of these are major changes to its gameplay systems, and what's more, Dying Light 2 DLC 2 will build on these changes with an open-world experience focused on the infected.
Game Rant recently spoke with Dying Light 2 franchise director Tymon Smektala, and while the interview covered plenty of the changes coming in the new year, the improved parkour and nighttime experiences sounded promising.
Dying Light 2's Nighttime Experience Will Become 'Scarier'
The goal of Dying Light 2's nighttime changes is to make it scarier and more atmospheric for players. Techland wants to bring back the fear and tension that permeated the nighttime experience of the first Dying Light, and it has a plan to do so. The big addition to that is the return of roaming volatiles from the first Dying Light, and their return means important changes to certain street and rooftop elements. "What players can expect is the ability to dive deep into the streets of infected, but still be able to walk and sneak through if they are agile enough," Smektala said. At the same time, the volatiles will be roaming the streets and looking around every corner to add to that tension. There will be some tweaks to these returning volatiles, as in they won't exactly be like the first game's monsters, but they'll be every bit as dangerous.
We also want to increase the motivation to actually go down to the street level with the volatiles during the night. We'll add some new sources of loot for players to pursue and some new activities they can do. The most important thing for us is to create the atmosphere of being surrounded by powerful, aggressive beasts that even if you're careful, if they see you, then the only thing you can do is basically run for your life and save yourself.
Dying Light 2's Parkour Will Become More 'Grounded'
The goal for Dying Light 2's parkour at launch was to be more accessible, and while Smektala believes Techland accomplished this, he also acknowledged that the team lost some of grounded elements and realism fans loved of the first game. Smektala also added that "if you started playing the series with Dying Light 2, it would be very hard to get back to the parkour of the first game." And while this may sound simple on paper, the reality of it is much more complex. Years of work went into the parkour system, and there is a lot more work in bringing these updates with nearly every facet of the game—programming, animation work, physics simulation, level design elements, geometry, and more.
It's really a huge undertaking, and that's why we're not rushing this. We decided we didn't want to do small incremental increases with each update. What we want to do is focus on those core systems and take them up to the next level, with the focused work of a bigger group of people. This way, the update is felt more strongly.
Dying Light 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.