Dying Light by developers Techland put a whole new spin on the zombie genre back in 2015. It took the basic premise of Dead Island and enhanced it with a set of parkour moves, the bustling city of Harran, and an extensive crafting system. It played very much like Mirror’s Edge that was peppered with reanimated menaces within a dystopian setting. It garnered fair enough praise by players and critics alike, and it was enough to entice Techland to add some DLC to the campaign. The day and night cycle is what made this game unique in comparison to the other undead slaughter fests on the market. With that said, it was a good bet that Dying Light 2 was in the works and it was confirmed at E3 2018.
Now, the title is officially called Dying Light 2: Stay Human and Techland is starting to pull back the curtain a little more before launch in December. Techland has been pretty quiet with their development which left fans wondering what upgrades will be implemented into this sequel? Techland has released a handful of gameplay trailers within the last few years and it’s clear that they’re taking their work to new heights with this installment. This time around, players will be controlling a new protagonist named Aiden Caldwell to where he will be located within a sprawling European metropolis called simply “The City.” It’s been about 15 years after the first Dying Light and the world has become more tribal and somewhat primitive. Firearms are nowhere to be seen and combat will rely strictly on melee weapons, parkour moves, and the wits of the player. According to Techland, the campaign is only going to be 15-20 hours long, but there’s going to be well over 100 hours of content to dig into.
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New Hero, New City
Aiden Caldwell is a wanderer who acts as a messenger between all the factions within The City. He was promised that secrets of his past will be revealed if he does what was asked. Thus, he is also in a desperate search of someone close to him. This motivates him to keep putting his life at risk to explore this open-world map and accomplish a variety of missions. The setting of Dying Light 2: Stay Human is unrelenting. It very much reflects the brutality of the medieval ages and people’s lifespans are short. Aiden will have up to 3000 parkour animations in which he will also be equipped with a grappling hook and paraglider. The crafting mechanism is on a whole new level and players will be fighting a host of challenging enemies in the guise of zombies and humans alike.
The City is separated into varying areas that are overruled by three different factions. The factions are called; The Survivors, The Peacekeepers, and The Renegades. Players will be free to choose which faction to join up with. The kicker is that the decisions that players make will affect the world permanently. There will be relationships forged and enemies molded with each subsequent choice that players will pick while playing Dying Light 2: Stay Human. Of course, just like with any other unforgiving environment, there will be wildcards out there. Enemies like bandits, outlaws and the infected will be lurking in every nook and cranny throughout The City. As the title suggests, nightfall will play a pivotal role with Dying Light 2: Stay Human. Whenever it is night, a variety of upgraded virals and shamblers will come crawling out of the shadows to pursue the player throughout the entire map.
Biting Back
According to Lead Game Designer Tymon Smektala, “The infected start as a Viral, which is someone who just got bitten and just got infected, so they still show traces of humanity, and at this point, they are very quick, very dangerous…they avoid the sun at all costs. But after some time in that state, they turn into what we call Biters, which are your regular zombies slowly moving infected that, if able, will try and grab you and infect you or eat you, but the sunlight is dangerous to them and they are not as quick and agile as the Virals.” Chances are that players will need different types of weapons to effectively take down the varying classes of zombies. Just like the original, a player’s arsenal will require constant maintenance will upgrades in order to keep up with the increasing threat that looms throughout the map.
Smektala also adds, “If Biters stay in the sun for a long period of time or under a UV light, they turn into Degenerates…decaying zombies that are very weak with pieces of flesh falling off of them, so they’re not really that dangerous to you. But still, you have to keep an eye for them because Dying Light 2 is a systemic game, a lot of things happen emergently. And, of course, there’s a different path of evolution for the infected where they turn into the Volatiles, which are the most dangerous, extreme night predators. If you see them, you just need to run. There’s no fighting with those guys because they will just kill you.” So, with a new grappling hook now available, players will be able to sling and escape from the volatiles with ease. With the original, the atmosphere was thick and it gave a claustrophobic feeling while trying to outrun the undead at night. The newest element will be the constant changes of the map throughout the story. The map of Harran remained static throughout the campaign of Dying Light and players could just memorize an escape route. With the sequel, players will need to constantly outmaneuver newly formed obstacles while being chased.
Pilgrims On Unholy Land
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is actually more of an ARPG with this installment. Writers that worked on Fallout – New Vegas and Divinity: Original Sin 2 have penned the story for Dying Light 2: Stay Human. The map will be a living, breathing organism that will constantly change based on what players do. The decisions that players will make will be within a very gray area. Even if a player has good intentions, it can end up accidentally decimating an area of the map that had a population of people. The map of The City will be about four times bigger than Harran was. It will be much more vertical and ripe for exploration and playing around with the parkour move set. Of course, players will also have an upgradable set of skills, resources to collect, and a multitude of things to craft with varying stats. On top of that, up to four players can join in to help out with Dying Light 2: Stay Human’s co-op feature.
It is good to know that Techland is taking the initiative and trying something new with this sequel. From what was stipulated, Dying Light 2: Stay Human is going to be an entirely different experience than its predecessor. There’s definitely going to be high replayability in this world and players won’t have to wait much longer. Dying Light 2: Stay Human is slated to be released on December 7, 2021, for the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
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