Techland promised a Dying Light 2 dev update today. Given the forewarning of an impending update on the status of the game, people thought that the studio would have something of substance to say, particularly following the reports of chaotic development. The update released today in the form of a 2:46 video, and while there’s certainly still a lot you can say and do in under three minutes, Techland took the time to say nothing of substance at all. Have a look for yourself below:
The video spends the first 1:09 recreating the “celebrities read mean tweets” format, but the bit just doesn’t land. With multiple reports over the past couple of years of poor management, lack of direction, and general development chaos at Techland, it ends up coming across as a bit condescending to people who are genuinely curious about what’s going on over at the studio. After wasting a bunch of time bleeping out curse words, they finally get to the development update.
“This is a huge and complex project, and we needed time to make sure it will live up to our vision,” the video says. However, reports about development say that the vision is constantly changing, which has caused a creep in scope and wasted a number of development hours at the assorted whims of studio management.
“We will be ready to start talking about Dying Light 2 very, very soon,” the video continues. Except that this is where people thought Techland would be ready to start talking about Dying Light 2. Announcing a dev update early, to then only say “we’ll talk about the game soon,” isn’t the meaningful dev update that eager fans and players need right now. “The whole team needs your trust and support as this is what motivates us,” the video says. “Especially now, when the circumstances are hard for everyone.” COVID certainly hasn’t made game development easy, but it feels like a lot of the blame is being shifted onto COVID to mask the other reported management issues at the studio, which go completely unaddressed.
The video goes on to say that they are proud of the loyal fans, no matter how they choose to express their feelings. And then they show about 13 seconds of assorted gameplay footage to placate those angry fans writing all those mean tweets. It ends with a “2021” stinger, showing that the studio still thinks the game is on track to release this year. Techland also used today’s video to encourage fans to join the Dying Light 2 Discord, where they are opening up a questions channel for people to ask development questions of the team.
Dying Light 2 was originally announced back at E3 2018 and a gameplay presentation at E3 2019 further showed a massive section of the game. However, little has been shown or talked about since that E3 2019 presentation, and reports arose in 2020 and again earlier this month that development of the title was chaotic and constantly changing. Earlier this week, Techland told fans not to expect a release date announcement today and said that they probably announced Dying Light 2 too early.
What did you think of today’s Dying Light 2 dev update? Were you expecting something more? When do you think they’ll be ready to talk about Dying Light 2 substantively? Parkour all the way down to the comments below to let us know.
