Dying Light 2: Stay Human is currently set to receive at least five years of post-launch support, including beyond the standard fixes and patches, a bevy of new content in the form of story DLCs, content drops, challenges, and more. Game ZXC recently spoke with Dying Light 2 lead designer Tymon Smektala about the future of the game.
Of course, only so much could be said at this early stage of the Dying Light 2 roadmap, but it sounds like fan feedback will play a major role. Smektala acknowledged fan requests for New Game Plus, Photo Mode, and more in Dying Light 2, but also mentioned how Techland has its own ideas too. Specifically, he also addressed how story DLCs will vary in size. The first story DLC, for example, will be on the smaller end because of how big the base game is, but there will also be bigger DLCs down the road.
For many fans, this likely brings Dying Light: The Following to mind, which was essentially a game in and of itself. It was huge and took some major risks by moving away from the parkour elements of the base game and tossing in the dune buggy for travel. So, we asked if anything from The Following will be built upon in Dying Light 2’s post-launch support.
Smektala mentioned how well-received Dying Light: The Following was, addressing how it seems like a similar Dying Light 2 DLC would be a no-brainer today, but there were a lot of doubts at the time, Smektala says, because…
“…The Following introduced a traversal mechanic, which was going completely against what we have built on with the first game. The first game is about you moving in a dense urban environment, with your own body, with your own parkour, agility, and mobility. And then we did our DLC, which added a vehicle to the game, and there are huge open empty areas for you to drive on. So it was going in a completely different direction than the first game.”
Smektala would go on to acknowledge how Techland took this risk but that it proved to be well worth it. “We also learned a lot about not being afraid of something, sometimes going against the grain,” Smektala says, “and we were discussing something similar for Dying Light 2: Stay Human. And again, I cannot go into many specifics, but the ideas that we have for, like, a Dying Light 2 version of the Following are really crazy.”
Of course, what fans should note is that this is not a confirmation of anything like “The Following 2,” but an assessment of how The Following’s risks proved to be worth it and how a comparably-sized DLC could utilize a similar approach. In Dying Light 2’s future DLC, it stands to reason Techland could pursue similar risks, though exactly what these “really crazy” ideas are remains to be seen. There's also no guarantee these ideas ever make it into the game, and that's just the nature of the beast when it comes to game development.
Indeed, Smektala also mentioned how Dying Light 2 intends to experiment with content drops, to see what fans like and don’t like in terms of tonality and more. Gameplay will play a key part in future Dying Light 2 content, but it’s also nice to know that Techland doesn’t seem averse to taking risks with it.
Dying Light 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
