It's been quite a journey for Dying Light 2 in 2023, giving players a whole host of new content through various updates and taking them in new directions with crossover events from franchises like For Honor, The Walking Dead, and more. Beginning the year with sizable and successful first anniversary celebrations and recently giving players the gift of its Winter Tales update, Dying Light 2 improved core mechanics like parkour and initiated many community wishlist features over the year. As a result, some players might wonder what is next for Dying Light 2's roadmap and what lies further ahead in 2024.
Just before the recent launch of its Winter Tales Event, Game ZXC spoke with franchise director Tymon Smektala about some of the key additions to Dying Light 2 in 2023, memorable creations from its community, and much more. Smektala also spoke about what lies ahead for Dying Light 2 future updates with its second anniversary and upcoming second DLC on the 2024 horizon. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Q: You've been with Techland for nearly 11 years now it seems?
A: Me personally, yes. It’s been 10 years and seven months. Almost 11, yes.
Q: Yeah, a long time. How does it feel working with the studio and being part of the Dying Light franchise for that length of time?
A: Well, rather good, I must say. I was also a games journalist for more than a decade, but then I fell into this cycle that I wanted to get out of, which was like the announcement of a new Call of Duty in April, E3 in June, a new FIFA in September, and the release of a new Call of Duty in November. I felt it kept repeating itself over and over again each year. I was looking for something different, something else, and at the same time, Techland was looking for a person who could become the spokesperson for Dying Light which was just being created back then. They hired me for that, but since the game was in very early stages, there wasn't that much talking about it just yet. I got into game design and I basically learned everything I know about game design and game development from Techland.
So, how does it feel? Firstly, I'm extremely grateful to the company and to the people who surround me that I was able to learn and earn this new profession. One thing about Techland is that it’s a studio. I think everyone says this when you ask "What is Techland’s biggest asset?," you will probably hear: its people, everyone here, because the people who work here are really great. I felt welcome when I joined. I feel like a part of the family where I'm at currently, and it is a good feeling.
I was also lucky enough to be able to have direct input into basically everything that we do with Dying Light - both the first one and the second one. I can understand that the perspective might be slightly different for people who specialize in animation or 3D assets, etc. They do their kind of piece of work, and they do it perfectly well. But I was lucky enough to be in a position where I could have more input and influence over where the game was going. It's also extremely satisfying on a professional level, and I think also personal, because as a gamer, it's a very exciting idea to be able to shape the game that you're excited about.
Q: That’s awesome, thank you for sharing that. How does it feel nearly approaching Dying Light 2’s second anniversary early next year?
A: It has definitely been a long road to get there, but I don't think we look behind us as much, like looking for and enjoying the accomplishments that we did as a team and the game as a successful game release. We are looking into the future. We have promised that we will be supporting the game for five years, at least five years. Even in the worst-case scenario, if it is five years and not more, then we are still not even in the middle of the process. All the the creativity, the amount of things that we would like to do in the game, is all still on a very high level.
I think the best way to sum up is that we are enjoying what we've done so far, and we are extremely proud of what we have accomplished. Both on the release, but also what we did post-launch and maybe even especially last year, because I think it was very, very transformative for the game and for us as a team. We are looking into the future, looking into the upcoming months. We have some very interesting, very cool ideas that we would like to deliver to players and see how they will respond to them.
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Even though it is sometimes tiring, it's like you're in the middle of this marathon, and then you suddenly start realizing that you're not as fresh as you were on the starting line. Then, the energy is still there. There's still a lot in front of us to achieve and a lot in front of us to do. We are ready for that, I suppose.
Q: Looking back at 2023, what have been some of your favorite or proudest additions to Dying Light 2 this year?
A: I would say the whole year regarding Dying Light 2, at least on this professional level, was a great achievement and a great journey for us. Why? Because it was a very interesting scenario for us because we started with the first anniversary, which was extremely well-received by our community. We introduced, in the form of playable outfits, some of the old characters from the first game. We delivered an update that got players excited about the future of the game and put a final dot at the end of the first year but also opened the doors for the second one. I think it built a lot of hope for great things to come over the second year, which I hope we delivered.
We have challenged ourselves by setting a very ambitious goal of upgrading and improving the core mechanics of the game. It's not that we were just adding some cosmetic content or just repeating, like, “We have 100 quests, so let's add 10 more.” We looked at how the game plays, how it feels, and what the experience is like. We realized that we wanted to make three of the core mechanics, which were the melee combat, the parkour system, and the day and night cycle even better than they were on release. I think it's quite unusual for a developer to do that, and I think we have managed to take all of those gameplay pillars into a higher stage - the next level of what they can be.
I think two moments were the most rewarding. The first one was our June update, where we changed the night experience. It was a kind of brave move from our side because, with the first game, we created this fantasy, this idea of an extremely scary night that players should be afraid of. It became a part of Dying Light’s DNA, but also, maybe we weren't too good with this because it actually was too scary. Many players were afraid to play at night.
For the second game, we wanted to make it a little bit more accessible. Maybe we were again a little bit too good in that because then players started telling us that, “But where is the night? Where is the scare factor? Where is the horror atmosphere? Where is the tense feeling I remember from the first game?”
We changed the night experience 180 degrees compared to what it was on release. We really made it very scary and very tense and also changed the gameplay mechanics that cover how the night experience plays. It was very ambitious from the development perspective and game design perspective as well.
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The second one was the last patch update that we released a few weeks ago, which was community update 3, where we packaged together a list of features that our community was requesting us to do. We basically said “Okay, you have a wish list - we'll deliver on your wish list” and we really did. We delivered features that answered some of the most requested elements of the game, and again, it was met with an extremely warm reception from our players. They really appreciated that we have assumed this collaborative, community-driven development approach, let's say, or development style or development methodology.
I think both of those moments were very important for us. The first is because we proved to ourselves that we can tap into something really complex and really difficult, managing to pull it off in a relatively short amount of time. The second one is because we have made our statement as a developer who really listens to the community, really wants to deliver the community’s requests, and invites the community to become a part of the development and design process. Something that, I think, has been some kind of staple, some kind of distinguishing part for us for quite some time. But I think with the community update 3, we really had to reinforce that and put us in a quite unique position in the industry.
Q: What was it like doing crossover events with franchises like The Walking Dead, For Honor, and Vampire: The Masquerade?
A: So, these were new things for us. It's not that they were the first crossovers that Dying Light ever did because we did some for Dying Light1. But we were a smaller IP, and it was more like a low-key collaboration between us as a developer and the developers of the other games. It was Rust and Left 4 Dead, obviously a big game, but I think we were still not as big as we are right now. For Dying Light 2, it was obviously different. Dying Light 2 was one of the most wish-listed games on Steam, and it really achieved tremendous success commercially.
We kind of entered a league where it's a little bit more complex, including the legal side, where you have to take care of everything and the discussions about doing crossovers like that also take more time and involve more people. But then when we started talking with The Walking Dead team, the For Honor team, and Vampire: The Masquerade guys, we realized that not only do we have a lot of admiration for what they do, but they also share a lot of admiration and appreciation for our game, for our brand. Personally, that was the happiest, most surprising part of those crossovers. I was slightly afraid that it might become those like just major corporations talking to each other, but we realized that it's just passionate developers who really want to get like each other's stuff into the prospective games. That was definitely a great feeling and a great experience.
I think our players also appreciated that especially since we tried to capture the spirit of the franchises we have collaborated with, with support from the other studios. I think the best example of that is what we did with For Honor, where Ubisoft supported us with some animation files, some 3D assets, and some vocal samples—audio samples that allowed us to take the collaboration to a completely different level. We basically re-edited some characters, some enemies from For Honor, and put them into the world of Dying Light, which was extremely exciting and something that rarely happens.
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We managed to design or use designs to bend our gameplay systems, so they fit what those characters can do in For Honor. I think the final effect was very well received by players; it was exciting for them. Also, it's a little bit surreal, come to think of it, that suddenly you're playing this one game, and you see a knight from For Honor trying to attack you. But definitely, that was great. That was something new to us and something that we obviously are willing to continue because all of those collaborations were a success.
Q: The Bloody Ties DLC recently had its first anniversary. What have you learned since its release and since the launch of ‘Community Ideas’? Has anything within the community feedback been surprising or stuck out to you?
A: I would say for Bloody Ties, the thing that I think surprised us a little was that when we were working on this, our thinking was, “Hey, you have this grim, apocalyptic tale full of zombies where you have to fight for survival every day. Maybe we'll just offer you something that will give you lots of fun. You can basically forget about the mechanics, forget about survival, just have fun, doing crazy stuff in crazy arenas.” To our surprise, this is not exactly what our players wanted. They wanted more apocalypse, more survival, and more of that dense, grim feeling of Dying Light. So that was a surprise, I must say - I think we kind of overlooked that.
Still, I think Bloody Ties offers some of the most exciting gameplay sequences from the DL2 era. Even though it is not the dark, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic tale that maybe some players wanted, I still encourage everyone to give it a try. Because in gameplay terms, I think it has some very interesting, very tense moments.
It was definitely a learning lesson for us and I think moving forward we’ll be way more considerate and careful when we are trying to offer something so left-field compared to the core experience. I think the next batch of content that we will release will be more traditional in its take on the zombie apocalypse. Maybe, at some point, when we come to the conclusion that “Yes, now they're ready. Now we can give them the crazy stuff, the left-field stuff,” then maybe we'll experiment with something else.
Q: Has anything created by the community this year been particularly memorable, for instance, in Community Maps?
A: We have spent a lot of time and effort on making it more visible for every player because, with community creations, it’s always that access to them is limited. You have to have some kind of tech proficiency, and you have to have some kind of internet proficiency to know where to look for that content. We knew that we had lots of amazing content creators and map creators, so we wanted to do something to expose their creativity and their work. That's why we put in the effort to make sure that the maps are available from in-game. Every player without any preparations can access them as if it were just another level in the game.
A lot of great stuff has really happened there. I think one of my personal favorites is a map called ‘Return to the Slums,’ which uses the assets from the first game to build a map that brings the feeling, brings the imagery of the first map from Dying Light 1, which is the slums, but they reconfigure it so it's actually something different. I think there's a lot of very clever level design there where the whole map is built on something resembling cliffs where you kind of see the whole thing, but to get to the top of it, you need to put in some effort, fighting with zombies and overcoming obstacles along the way. I like this map very much, but tons of them are very exciting. Some of them are really, like, crazy in terms of ideas.
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For example, I think it's called Heavy Rail where there's a post-apocalyptic Train Simulator. Some maps are more sci-fi which was surprising for us and crazy for us - that creativity of some mods that went into this specific direction. We also feel this is a growing part of what Dying Light is, so we are constantly giving map creators new assets to play with. Just recently, we added a new set of assets from the first Dead Island, the one that we workeded on. Again, I'm expecting some very interesting maps created by the community using those assets.
We have shown some of them recently, at our other office. Before that, a few weeks ago, we also invited some map creators to our office for, I think, two or three-day workshops, where we focused on helping them to do better maps, but also understanding what their needs are as map creators so we can develop our dev tools even more.
I can imagine that there are Dying Light players who haven't yet tried the Community Maps, but I really encourage them to do so because there are some real treasures there. It's something that we plan to support even more, giving more kinds of options, more power to our dev tools, increasing the visibility of those maps in the game, and using our communication channels, social media, etc. We also have some plans, that I would not like to spoil at this moment, to increase the support to some other types of content. It is definitely a very strong part of Dying Light 2 and I hope that, in time, it will become a part of our identity—that we are this game that supports map creators and makes those creations accessible to every player.
Q: Do you and the team have any specific expectations for the addition of things like snow and other surprises in the upcoming Winter Tales update, which is tomorrow?
A: Yeah, so Winter Tales is dropping tomorrow. It's actually our thank you gift to the community, so they can enjoy some new Dying Light stuff by the end of the year. There is the Winter Tales event, which is our holiday event where you can expect snow, as you mentioned. In the snow, there are also snowballs, so you can have snowball fights, and there are some new enemies.
I think what the players will be most excited about are the Santa airdrops. We are bringing back one mechanic from the first game, where there were airdrops delivering some care packages for the survivors. We’re using this so Santa Claus can bring some good stuff, some good loot to the citizens of Villedor. It's a very nice, very cool event that we hope players will have fun with over the next two weeks, three weeks, over the holiday season.
Aside from that, we are also adding some mechanics and content that our players asked for that we also wanted to, as I said, give them at the end of the year as this nice package from us. There will be some new enemy variants and some new weapons. We are bringing a new weapon type – Polearms. This is a weapon that gives you a bigger reach and some new ways of dealing with the infected. Another new weapon type is the nocturnal weapons. These are weapons that work best during the night, so there is some risk and reward involved. If you want to brave the night, then yes, you can. Those weapons will give you extra buffs and extra strength, but only if you play during the night. If you carry those weapons and you get hit by enemies, you lose more of your Immunity, which is our mechanic that limits the time spent during the night, so it's quite interesting.
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There are some additional new gameplay mechanics, like, for example, throwing knives that stick to an enemy and explode - basically some cool toys, some cool gadgets for players to play with, to have fun with by the end of the year.
There are some new enemy variants. For example, there are guys that, if you trigger them correctly, start freezing enemies around them. There's a version of our big boss enemy, the Goon, who can now call reinforcements during the fight using a scream that resembles Godzilla, so, it's a really nice package. Maybe not as big as the previous one, but just something nice for the end of the year, because we are gearing up for the second anniversary which will drop in the early part of next year, which will actually bring way more stuff, way more content to play, and new gameplay mechanics.
Q: How does Dying Light 2’s second anniversary compare to the first anniversary in terms of size and scale?
A: Actually, I would like to not answer that question directly because I don't want to spoil the surprise for players, especially since we want to focus on Winter Tales which drops tomorrow. So, let's focus on that. It's a very nice update to the game. Obviously, we had a successful first anniversary, so there's this ambition to top ourselves with the second one. I hope we'll do that. But as I said, I think there are more opportunities to talk about this when we get closer to the release. If players are extremely kind of curious about what will be a part of it, I think they can look at the sneak peek of our roadmap that we have released for fall and winter. It's obvious that some of the features from that roadmap haven't been released yet and will not be released tomorrow, but they will be released by the end of winter. So, there are definitely some hints there.
Q: With the Winter Tales update, you mentioned nocturnal weapons. How might these have an impact on the nighttime scariness or difficulty factor? You mentioned there's a risk-and-reward kind of approach.
A: Well, in a way, you could say that they could make the night part a little bit less scary because those weapons are extremely powerful during the night. You can say, “Okay, I'll get this overpowered weapon or extremely strong weapons, which will be easier for me to play at night.” But at the same time, as I said, if you make a mistake, if you get hit, if you aren't cautious about your environment, then you also get an extra hit.
In a way, it's easier, but also harder with this additional element of gambling on your side, like “Will I make it? Should I risk it?” So, what I hope it will do, it will add a little bit of spice, a little bit of extra excitement to the night experience, not necessarily making it easier, because that wasn't the goal. The goal was to just have something that ups the adrenaline and ups the tempo even more than our night usually does.
Q: And you mentioned some new enemy variants, like the Gas Tank variants with a freezing ability and some other types. Is that something you could tell us a bit more about?
A: Yeah, so with the new enemy variants initiative, we are taking the enemies that we have in the game already, and we are thinking about some twists and tweaks to the formula where we can use them as a foundation to create something different, something that creates more immersion moments as well. I think the immersion in what those new mechanics can bring is the most important factor for us.
It's basically a Dying Light staple where we have this kind of infected guy from pre-apocalypse who carries a big gas tank on his back he was a part of some military members or maybe some other factions that were trying to contain the infection. The one that we had so far was a guy that if you attack him—if you trigger the gas tank, he explodes. There's a short fly-in-the-air animation, you never know where he's going to end up, and then he explodes and that's it. We took this concept and started thinking about what else we could do with it, and then we created a variant of him where whatever he has in his gas tank freezes enemies around him. Now when you hit him, he starts turning the guys around him into those ice figures. It's your opportunity to go there and score some hits on those frozen guys without any risk.
Another guy works on a similar concept but leaves fire puddles behind him, so you can use him to your advantage. But then, he can also be a threat to you because he creates those kill zones on the battlefield where you don't really want to jump into the fire when you fight zombies. So, another interesting immersion element.
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The Goon caller I mentioned - so that's a big guy who our players know so well. We realized there's one thing about him is that, usually, the fight with him he usually spawns with some other, smaller guys, but if you kill them first, then it’s basically a duel between you and the big guy which, at some point, if you’ve played like 100 hours, 200 hours, like a lot of our players do – can get a little repetitive. What we did is that we have added this ability, so he can kind of scream in the air, drawing other Infected towards him. Making, again, another immersion situation that also solves the problem of being repetitive from time to time.
Another guy is a variant of our Gas Tank, but one that runs at you very speedily. He's almost like the Suicider that you have to kill before he gets you, so I think we have about five or six such variants in this update. This is an initiative that we really do enjoy a lot. We have created a small strike team of designers, programmers, and animators that work specifically on this. Sometimes, you can get a sense of when someone is working on something they enjoy, like when they talk about it, their movement when they talk about it, and their excitement about it, you can feel it from having a conversation with them. That's actually what I get from the team. They're on fire, as they say, and I think we will not stop here.
We have another update, like the second one, where we introduce some new enemy variants - with the next one we will continue the initiative as well. I think players can expect more of those variants appearing in the game over the course of the next few months.
Q: While the team is working on Tower Raid and the addition of more firearms, are you able to tell us anything about what players might expect from the DLC next year?
A: So again, I think I will use the liberty not to answer that directly because I think there will be time to talk about this when we get closer to the release of those features. All of them are progressing, all of them are something that we playtest and tweak and balance in our studio basically every day. All of those features are progressing. All of those will be released in the upcoming weeks and months, so players can expect that, as we have promised them. The closer we get to release, the more we'll be able to talk about them, but I think they will be good. Actually, I am really satisfied with the progress on those features, so just stay tuned a little longer, and then we'll be able to talk about this.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add or tell our readers?
A: Well, I would like to thank our community for the last year, for this year actually, because it was, as we already discussed, quite a ride. We managed to improve the game in many ways, and it wouldn't be possible without the support of our community, the ideas of our community, and the interest and engagement of our community. I always use the opportunity to thank our players for their engagement, so again, I'm using that. I hope they will enjoy the Winter Tales update. It's like a little love letter from us to them. So guys, please enjoy that, focus on Winter Tales, and next year, we will be talking about the second anniversary and what will happen with Dying Light 2 moving further.
[END]
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 is the next installment in the heart-racing zombie apocalypse franchise. Techland has introduced an even larger open world for players to explore, with cooperative play, tons of upgrades and unlockables, and high-speed parkour action.
- Franchise
- Dying Light
- Platform(s)
- PS5 , PC , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , PS4 , Switch , Xbox One
- Released
- February 4, 2022
- Developer(s)
- Techland
- Publisher(s)
- Techland
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes
