Dying Light 2 Stay Human - zombie survival with choice & consequence

[Justicar]

Its just a commercial for nividia I think they even send their own engineers to big developers to implement this shit so they can sell more cards.

At this point every engine incorporates this.
It's not worth shilling about.. but if Nvidia forced them to do it - fair enough.

(It didn't feel like a Nvidia ad.. minus the green rectangle in the corner of the screen)

Every big studio is shilling this it was the same shit with nividia physx clothing a couple years ago.

 

[BruceVC]

I loved DY1, its was my favorite Zombie killing game of all time. I l enjoyed creating unique weapons and finding components and the fear of traveling at night

I dont mind the delay to 4 Feb because I would rather wait than have a game released that is full of bugs that would just vex me. DY2 also just seems better on every level so I can understand necessary ETA creep

But this game is going to be another " Day 1 " purchase for me

 

[Infinitron]

Do you want to know MORE about Dying Light 2 Stay Human? No worries! Paulina's guest is Szymon Strauss, Producer, who will tell you more about the weapons which you will use in the game.

 

[Alienman]

That interview feels very natural.

 

[Infinitron]

Now with Mrs. Cory Booker:

 

[Infinitron]

Dive deep into the world of Dying Light 2 Stay Human in the latest Dying 2 Know More episode, where renowned composer Olivier Derivière (Streets of Rage 4, Vampyr, A Plague Tale: Innocence) details a special custom-built instrument creating extraordinary in-game sounds and shares the inspiration behind Dying Light 2’s main theme, “Run, Jump, Fight”.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/in-dying-light-2-the-choices-you-make-can-change-an-entire-city/

In Dying Light 2 the choices you make can change an entire city
The open-world apocalyptic city in Dying Light 2: Stay Human is in constant flux.

Aiden Caldwell, enigmatic hero of Dying Light 2: Stay Human, is a member of the Pilgrims—a loose gathering of post-apocalyptic drifters wandering the ruins of the old world. He arrives in the City, the nameless metropolis where the game is set, looking for his sister, Mia. “Aiden is plagued by vague, disconnected memories of her,” says lead game designer Tymon Smektała. “When he learns the people responsible for what happened to her have been found there, he embarks on a mission to learn the truth.”

This open-world zombie game is going a step beyond the original, backing its free-running, undead swarms, and brutal melee combat up with an interactive, branching story you can have a real impact on. The City isn’t just home to countless numbers of aggressive infected, but warring factions of human survivors too. It’s a big old mess, but a compelling setting for a survival horror game. And one of the most interesting features in Dying Light 2 is how the City changes dramatically depending on the time of day.

Night (un)life
When night falls, the streets are overrun with infected. The safe option is to stay on the rooftops and wait for the sun to send them scurrying back into their lairs. But if you’re feeling brave, venturing down into the depths of the city can net you some quality loot. Building interiors that are usually teeming with zombies are suddenly empty, with only a few stragglers remaining, letting you sneak in to grab gear and upgrades. Then you just have to worry about making it out and back to the relative safety of the rooftops.

“The City transforms at night,” says Smektała. “Citizens hide away in their hiding places, the glow of UV lamps is visible everywhere, and the silence of the night is interrupted by the sound of monsters crawling out into the streets. A world full of dangers by day becomes a whole different challenge at night. The lairs of the infected become empty, giving you the opportunity to explore and find useful and sometimes very valuable items.”

Techland describes Dying Light 2’s setting as a ‘modern dark age.’ While most zombie games are set in the immediate aftermath of an outbreak, or long after it, this story takes place just as the world has gotten over the initial shock and is starting to rebuild. “Fifteen years have passed since the global apocalypse that followed the virus emerging, and we’ve tried to make the City reflect this in a realistic and credible way,” says Smektała. “We looked for inspiration in the cities where we live. We let our imaginations run wild and thought about what would change if such a major catastrophe occurred.

“We imagined what parts of the city would stay human, and which parts would be reclaimed by nature. What kind of living spaces would be created by people, and what structures would be formed during these 15 years by the hands of people who cut off from technology. This is how our modern dark age was created—a civilisation that returned to medieval times in the modern-day, and with the memory of the world before the fall.”

Spoiler

All change
Interestingly, the City isn’t a totally fixed, static environment. Parts of it can change based on the many decisions you make over the course of the game. Meaningful player choice is something the developer is striving for—including making you feel bad as the consequences of your actions play out in front of you. As you progress through the story you’ll affect the lives of people in small, individual ways, but also change the layout of the City itself.

“Your decisions can shape the appearance of locations and affect the factions living in the City, and you will see the outcome of this impact on the environment,” says Smektała. “It’s worth going through the game more than once, or in co-op, to discover everything that is impacted by these choices. There are interesting sidequests that will have their own consequences,” he adds. “Some choices you may even regret when your actions inadvertently make the lives of other residents of the City difficult.”

Getting around the City is made easier by the fact that Aiden is a skilled free-runner. The parkour system in Dying Light 2 is much more complex and natural-feeling than in the previous game, and you’ll have access to way more moves.

“Parkour is the essence of Dying Light,” says Smektała. “It is our beloved child who makes us proud. Bartosz Kulon [programmer and designer] came to Adrian ‘Pyza’ Ciszewski [director] many years ago and said, ‘Yeah, Dead Island is great, but what if we added roof-running and climbing?’ And that was where the idea for Dying Light was born.

“There are thousands of animations based on, among others, the movements of the legendary father of this discipline, David Belle. We have crazy parkour combinations that allow you to do really wild acrobatics and tools that allow us to diversify limited human movements with new possibilities. In addition, there is a refreshed grappling hook and paraglider system, which increase the importance of gravity and natural movement in the game. It had to be immersive and satisfying since the player’s main way of moving around the City would be on foot.”

David Belle is a French actor, choreographer, and stunt coordinator, and the founder and leading pioneer of parkour – so having him in a game where parkour is a key feature is a pretty big deal. “David is an important part of the game,” says Smektała. “Starting with him playing the character of Hakon, to the extra realism his mocap session gave us, including many new animations. And of course, he’s been the ‘father of parkour’ for many years, and from the first game he’s been both an inspiration and our guide to authentic parkour techniques and the amazing movements the body can make. We couldn’t imagine creating Dying Light 2 without David Belle.”

Old yeller
You’ll need to master Aiden’s parkour skills to outsmart Dying Light 2’s wider range of zombies, especially when you encounter the Howler. “At first, the Howler was a stationary enemy, almost like a CCTV camera, just scouting the area,” says Smektała. “But, as we were working on the game, we started developing our stealth mechanics a little bit more.

“The Howler naturally became a primary obstacle in all situations involving stealth. The archetype for the enemy stayed with us since the initial inception – it was supposed to be a sentry that could spot the player and alarm other units around. But during development, we realised we could do a lot more with it, like having it patrol the area. Howlers don’t actually engage on sight. Instead, they emit a high-pitched scream which will attract any infected in the area and lure them towards your position.”

I ask Smektała about the balance of story and action in Dying Light 2. Storytelling is something the team is clearly putting an increased focus on, but to what extent? “Dying Light 2 is an action game,” he says. “We have parkour as a way to move around the world freely, rewarding combat, a variety of weapons and even parkour moves that you can use creatively while fighting. The animation base is huge, which allows players to overcome the many dangers in the City in a spectacular manner.

“However, it was very important for us to create an interesting and engaging story as well. People in the world will react to the player’s actions and choices, and they can become friends or enemies depending on your decisions. There’s also a new system called city alignment, where you can assign specific zones of the city to one of the factions, which of course may also influence the world and the story in interesting ways.”

There are three main factions in Dying Light 2. The Peacekeepers are dedicated to eliminating all threats to humanity in the world. “They want to rally citizens to their views and secure territory for a new society based on their principles,” says Smektała. “On the other hand, the Survivors believe that their survival depends on their ability to foster craftsmanship and relearn ancient skills to thrive. They value experimentation, art, culture, and knowledge, and passing this down to their children.”

Then, lastly, there are the Renegades. “They believe in sacrifice for the greater good,” says Smektała. “They’re a ruthless, militarised criminal organisation, resorting to immoral means to ensure their survival.” When you play Dying Light 2 you’ll be able to work for these three factions – but working for one that is the enemy of another won’t go unnoticed.

And what about that Stay Human subtitle in the game name? I ask Smektała what it represents. “As you can imagine, in an apocalypse, society becomes brutal and all its elements are reevaluated. The title covers two issues, physical and mental. On the physical side, this is of course avoiding transformation due to infection: controlling the disease through biomarkers and taking care of exposure to UV rays. In short, ‘stay human’ as a living being and prevent yourself from turning into a monster.

“The second layer, humanity, is about remaining human according to the norms and principles we know. The world after the apocalypse has changed in almost every respect, and it will be up to the player whether they will be guided by the good of the individual, the greater good, or maybe take a different path altogether.”

You can decide what path you’ll take when Dying Light 2: Stay Human is released on December 7.

 

[Infinitron]

In this episode of Dying 2 Know MORE, you'll find out what are abandoned structures and what is their function in Dying Light 2.

 

[BruceVC]

In this episode of Dying 2 Know MORE, you'll find out what are abandoned structures and what is their function in Dying Light 2.

[/QUOTE]

I like the latest update, the idea of abandoned buildings becoming " living " and aligned to factions is a good one

And I like the extra information about how one of the main developers loves Mario and how he incorporates that into the DY design around movement

 

[Ivan]

Rosario Dawson. Always had a crush on her. <3

 

[Salvo]

Rosario Dawson. Always had a crush on her. <3

Simp

 

[vota DC]

In this episode of Dying 2 Know MORE, you'll find out what are abandoned structures and what is their function in Dying Light 2.

I like the latest update, the idea of abandoned buildings becoming " living " and aligned to factions is a good one

And I like the extra information about how one of the main developers loves Mario and how he incorporates that into the DY design around movement

It would be interesting if you give equally those buildings to the three factions to keep a neverending war.

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Infinitron]

Dive deep into the world of Dying Light 2 Stay Human in the latest Dying 2 Know More episode, where Tymon Smektała - Lead Game Designer will tell you much more about one of the most important and interesting characters in Dying Light 2 Stay Human. In this episode, viewers will learn many details about Lawan as well as many similarities that connect her to Rosario. Tymon will tell you why such a choice was made and why Rosario Dawson turned out to be a perfect fit for this role.

 

[flyingjohn]

I swear every time she attempts to say light it sounds like kike.

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[CyberWhale]

Great news all around, communities trying to build something out of the ruins instead of squatting in shitty shacks and dying of hunger Bethesda-Fallout style being the primary one. Other features are more gamey, but I don't mind them since they seem to fit the theme and improve the gameplay experience. The only issue is the disgustingly colorful and in-your-face UI. Let's hope the mods fix it.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...t-2-brings-techlands-open-world-formula-alive

Dying Light 2 brings Techland's open world formula alive
Breathing fresh life into the undead - hands-on with the long-awaited sequel.

Dying Light was a funny old game. Mostly passed over by indifferent critics, it went on to pick up a considerable following who were more forward in their praise - chief among them being none other than the legend Fumito Ueda, a man of impeccable taste who in naming it his game of 2015 always made me curious to go back for more. I only ever briefly sampled Techland's parkour-infused follow-up to Dead Island, enjoying its cornball combat and open world full of athletic opportunities for half a dozen hours before moving on to pastures new.

Dying Light 2 looks like it'll do a lot more to get its hooks into passing players like myself. After several delays - and coming up to some seven years since the original launched - Techland recently offered a sizable chunk up to press to play. After four hours with a couple of generous segments of Dying Light 2's campaign, I'm certainly keen to get stuck in for plenty more.
So what's changed? Set 20 years after the events of the original Dying Light, the sequel introduces all-new protagonist Aiden Caldwell. It's an anonymous name for a lead character who seems like something of a blank slate (even if it is a fully voiced role, with Jonah Scott's performance completely nondescript), though I think that's intentional as Dying Light 2 puts its story firmly into your hands. This is a game world rich with rival factions for you to pick your path between, and branching storylines backed up by dialogue choices, all of which inform and influence the world around you.

Those small tweaks make a big impact on Dying Light, making for a much more immersive experience. Our time with Dying Light 2 kicked off in Old Villedor, a ramshackle and very much run down section of the game's vast map. Indeed, it's one of seven sections of a map that's supposedly four times larger than that of the original Dying Light, and even after three hours poking around it felt like there was plenty still left to see.

You're forced to make big decisions on a timer, meaning there's no dithering allowed.

All that breadth would count for nothing if it wasn't backed up by some depth, and Dying Light 2 really delivers here on multiple fronts. A ramshackle bazaar acts as a sort of hub, and it's where you'll find shopkeepers as well as quest givers. Some will send you out into the wilds of the city with a simple fetch request, while others offer up questlines that can get a little more complicated.

The backbone of our time in and around Old Villedor was supplied by two bickering factions who set you about their busywork, while using you as a pawn in their own conflict. Through conversation choices and your own decisions about whether you take on certain missions or not, you're given a fair amount of agency in how things play out - and key moments are given urgency by a system similar to Telltale games and the Life is Strange series, where your hand is forced as there's limited time to make big decisions.

The paraglider, unlocked much later in the game, opens up your traversal options. Thankfully there's some nice tall buildings in the more built-up parts of The City to fling yourself from.

Spoiler

It's compelling stuff, and is another aspect of what was already an enjoyably multi-faceted game. Step away from the main story and there's still plenty to do in Dying Light 2, from open world staples like bandit camps to scout and conquer, windmills to scale so that you can unlock safe zones and items to be collected and crafted. Just like its predecessor, Dying Light 2 is governed by a day/night cycle that's more pronounced than in many other open world games by the fact that when the sun sets things get a lot more lethal. There's a brilliant sense of threat once night rolls in and you sprint from one mob of undead to another, and it's backed up by the series' brilliant parkour mechanics.

Getting from A to B in Dying Light remains a delight. It can make even the most mundane fetch quest feel like fun, as you pounce up on rooftops and leap athletically to your next objective. I can't pretend to be too much of an expert on the original's parkour to tell you precisely where improvements have been made, but there's noticeably more animations helping sell the spectacle and what I can say is that after a hefty amount of time with Dying Light 2 its traversal never let me down. Having a parkour mechanic that's both dynamic and dependable is no mean feat at all.

Rosario Dawson makes a welcome appearance - in general, the quality of voice acting and writing seems high in Dying Light 2.

Dying Light 2 mixes up the formula a little too with the introduction of a paraglider - something I got the smallest of tastes of in the latter section of the preview offered up. As opposed to the more ramshackle, old world feel of Old Villedor, this section took place in the urban Central Loop that's full of towering city buildings. They're the perfect thing to paraglide off, of course, picking up thermals spouted up from spinning vents upon their rooftops.

Down on the ground there are some wonderful setpieces in the midst too - at one point in the main questline you infiltrate an enemy camp in search of some all-important crystals, stealthily taking down human enemies with necksnaps from within the shadows, only for the silent approach to go suddenly loud when a gargantuan zombie goon crushes through the wall. It's heartrate-raising stuff - and even if that doesn't do it for you, it's always entertaining landing a crunchy blow on a zombie skull with a bit of lead pipe.

The open world is noticeably bigger this time around, and of course it's stuffed full of things to explore.

What's really impressive about our time with Dying Light 2, though, is how Techland's made a world that's really rewarding to explore. The deeper story options make for a richer world, and a better sense of the catastrophe that unfolded beneath the rubble as well as the struggles of those still trying to piece that world together. It's got back some of that rough charm of Dead Island that wasn't such a big part of the original Dying Light, and it takes it to some interesting places too. It might be coming up to seven years since the original for Techland's follow-up to finally release, but if our hours with Dying Light 2 are any indication it's going to have been well worth the wait.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dying-li...-combat-but-its-ambitious-story-may-be-a-dud/

Dying Light 2 nails the first-person parkour and combat, but its ambitious story may be a dud
Our first hands-on was a good time, except for when Dying Light 2 rolled out the Walking Dead melodrama.

The best decision I made in four hours with Dying Light 2 was helping a guy electrocute a goat. It wasn't quite what he was going for—this wannabe inventor was trying to create an electric fence and accidentally ended up barbecuing the town goat he hoped to keep safe. But it worked out for me, because I unlocked a weapon mod that let me add stunning electrical damage to my medieval mace. I pulled that mace out for every tough fight over the next two hours and absolutely decimated bosses and the strongest zombies I came across.

Dying Light 2 is a good time. It's been a long time coming: the first Dying Light came out in 2015, and this one was originally meant to be finished in 2020. From what I've played, there's still a lot of polishing left to do, but the action and parkour that defined Dying Light are both here, and both nice and weighty. I left convinced that I could play through Dying Light 2's whole campaign without tiring of smashing in zombie brains or taking running leaps between rooftops.

I can't say the same for Dying Light 2's story, unfortunately. Despite an ambitious promise to make your decisions impact the path you take through Dying Light 2 and how the world changes around you, the writing and acting for those story beats feel like they belong to a game from a half decade ago that hasn't aged particularly well.

Dialogue in Dying Light 2 gave me flashbacks to watching the early seasons of The Walking Dead—I think I made it most of the way through the second season of that show before I couldn't stand the absolutely contrived decisions characters made to justify that week's drama. If you've watched or read or played any piece of post-apocalyptic media, you're probably already well familiar with the tropes Dying Light 2 is going to trot out. You play a guy named Aiden (immediate red flag if you played Watch Dogs) who's on a search for his missing sister (I'm sure that won't end tragically, right?) and along the way you run into survivors who aren't just good or bad, you know, but morally gray. We're talking at least several shades, here.

Everyone's morally gray, even the sneeringly evil characters, because that's just what it's like to be a survivor a couple decades after the zombie apocalypse. Dying Light 2 wants you to choose who to side with and who to help and who to double-cross constantly, which only really works if you're stuck in the middle of a whole bunch of conflicting interests.

There are at least some cool outcomes from these moments. If you sway an area's allegiance towards the civilians or the militaristic peacekeepers, for instance, it changes the "alignment" of the world. The peacekeepers will build traps you can use to kill zombies, while the survivors add parkour aids.

It's possible those choices add up to something bigger, and they certainly can affect who lives and dies as the results of some quests. In the few hours I played I really only got to see one area of Dying Light 2's massive city, and thus only a small part of its overarching story, so it's possible there's some genuinely compelling character stuff later on. But I doubt it—every conversation I had was overwrought and amusingly melodramatic, and my decisions often led to jarring changes in the tone of a conversation. At one point I swear I was trying to convince someone we needed to stick together and help each other, and two lines later they were trying to convince me that we should work together. O...kay?

Dying Light 2 has the structure to feel like a proper RPG, but with none of the storytelling chops of a game like The Witcher 3, which managed to make morally ambiguous characters nuanced instead of tropey caricatures.

I don't think this is really a dealbreaker in Dying Light 2's case, though. The branching storylines may be its biggest ambition, but most of us are going to be playing to parkour across the city and bash zombies in co-op, and both of those are things Dying Light 2 is more than capable of.

Spoiler

Hit and run
Here's another bold decision on Dying Light 2's part: there are no guns, period. This is a game all about weighty, pipes-cracking-skulls melee combat, and firearms have no place in it (I guess humanity used up all the bullets between DL1 and DL2). Even from the short stretch of the game I played, weapon variety was a highlight: the different melee weapons I used each felt pretty distinct when I made contact with zombies, from the speedier slice of a machete to the really heavy thwonk of a lead pipe.

I played my demo on a controller, where smacking zombie heads with a quick strike or by holding down a button to deliver a power blow felt really good. At one point I went to town on a crowd of zombies with a police baton that briefly made me feel like I was reenacting The Raid, though I don't want to oversell it—the sound effect was bang on, even if I wasn't pulling off 15-hit combos. First-person melee combat here is satisfying in the same way it is in Warhammer: Vermintide 2, one of my favorite co-op games of the last few years.

I didn't get to play Dying Light 2 in co-op, but I think both games work as great co-op hangout experiences largely because you don't have to be too focused in combat to enjoy wailing on enemies. It's definitely not braindead though: when I went up against larger hordes of zombies or big brute minibosses, I had to stay on my toes with blocks and especially dodging, since you can't block more powerful strikes.

Dodging feels a bit unintuitive in first person, but positioning really matters if you're going up against tougher enemies or hordes of small fry. You can get yourself killed quickly if you don't carefully kite around the zombies running at you, use kicks to buy yourself breathing room, and manage your stamina.

There's still a crafting system here for enhancing weapons, though I only managed to unlock the one weapon mod that turned my mace into an OP brain zapper. There was a whole skill tree that Techland says it's not quite ready to show off, but expect a lot of abilities to make you more powerful in both combat and parkour. From the start you're already fairly maneuverable, but you'll be able to unlock abilities to run faster and jump further, fall from greater heights, and chain moves together more fluidly.

I didn't play much of the original Dying Light, but I did play the heck out of Dead Island, and I'm happy to say that running, jumping and climbing around the world is still a really satisfying way to get from one place to another. That basic experience is something that way too many open world games fail to deliver. So many of them are full of empty space that mostly serves to pad out exploration, but without much to really do within that space. I'm not saying Elden Ring needs parkour, but, I mean, maybe it does?

I was far from invested in Dying Light 2's story or the survivors I met, but that didn't really matter. I was content finding paths across roofs and along ledges. It's still thrilling to make those big leaps across large gaps and feel the thud when you hit the ground. Dying Light 2's developers told me they did a lot of work to refine the parkour system for this game, and overall I really liked the feel of it, which isn't easy to pull off in first person.

Parkour was never nauseating and I rarely found myself frustrated with the controls not doing what I expected, though it wasn't always super clear why I couldn't climb something—readability could be a bit better, considering in the post-apocalypse most of the world looks similarly beat up and run down. There's the occasional bit of awkward animation, but I actually liked that the parkour here feels a bit more physical and uncertain than the super smooth, streamlined movement of something like Assassin's Creed.

I probably spent almost as much time sneaking around as I did parkouring. As in the original Dying Light, Dying Light 2's action changes significantly between night and day. Going into buildings during the day puts you at risk of being overwhelmed by hordes while the streets are relatively quiet, but at night all the zombies start chasing you around outside and become much more threatening. I had one mission where I was told I should wait until night to enter a building in search of some military gear, but I just went for it during the day anyway. It was tough, but I appreciated that I was able to make that choice.

There's a whole lot going on in Dying Light 2 beyond running around and cracking skulls. The stealth system, for example, has items you can throw to decoy enemies. If you stay in the dark too long you'll become infected, but you can find and craft items to inoculate yourself and there are UV lights throughout the world that reset your immunity. It adds an extra bit of tension to how and when you choose to fight or run. And there are climbing challenges, basically like towers in Assassin's Creed, that unlock new safe rest spots around the world.

The freedom to play quiet or loud and to climb up practically any building you want pairs well with the non-melee weapons in Dying Light 2. There are no guns, but there are bows and crossbows, and I had some real Far Cry vibes when I invaded a bandit camp and silently sniped the leader from a high perch I'd parkoured my way up to. The open-endedness is great.

Dying Light 2 feels like a properly huge sandbox, with all the goodness and baggage that entails in open world games. You're going to spend a lot of time hunting down crafting materials and looking at pieces of equipment with +5% crit chance and +19% damage at night, which will usually be dull but every so often results in a weapon that feels memorable. In games like Borderlands, I find a lot of generic open world tasks and repetitive loot much easier to forgive in co-op, which is where I think Dying Light 2's going to really shine. I'm not expecting much from its story after my first few hours with it, but if the co-op zombie bashing is good, that's what really matters.

 

[Infinitron]

Hmmm:

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Amusing how little time journos put into discussing why Avellone was dismissed now that he's suing people.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamebanshee.com/news/125742-dying-light-2-stay-human-hands-on-previews.html

Moving on to text previews, let's once again start with IGN:

The fluidity of movement is just one piece of the puzzle. Dying Light also stands out among other similar zombie survival games thanks to its brutal melee combat, which feels mostly the same here in the sequel. Speaking with Tymon Smektala, lead designer on Dying Light 2, he told me that one of the goals this time around was to combine parkour and combat so that players wouldn’t just run to an encounter, stop, kill all the enemies, and then continue on their way. To that end, one of the earliest abilities you get in Dying Light 2 is the ability to vault off an enemy and drop kick another in the face, sending them flying. Unfortunately, I didn’t get deep enough in the combat skill tree to really say how successful Dying Light 2 will be at accomplishing this specific goal, but nevertheless, combat seems impactful, action packed, and loaded with a ton of creative options thanks to an expansive arsenal of moddable melee weapons, craftable tools, and upgradeable skills.

Followed by Game Informer:

With relatable characters, all of whom are convinced their way is the way to do things, navigating the decisions and aligning with the characters of Dying Light 2 can feel all the more gut-wrenching. However, the most striking part of the narrative is how much more personal protagonist Aiden Caldwell's story is in Dying Light 2.

"The central question of the whole game is about who Aiden really is," narrative director Piotr Szymanek says. "That's the question that he asked himself: Why is he so skilled? Why is he stronger than other people? Why can he do what no one else can? He thinks that the answer to this question is his sister, whom he remembers from the past. During the past years, he was looking for her and suddenly he finds the trace of her in this village in The City where Dying Light 2 Stay Human takes place."

Then, there's also PC Gamer:

It's possible those choices add up to something bigger, and they certainly can affect who lives and dies as the results of some quests. In the few hours I played I really only got to see one area of Dying Light 2's massive city, and thus only a small part of its overarching story, so it's possible there's some genuinely compelling character stuff later on. But I doubt it—every conversation I had was overwrought and amusingly melodramatic, and my decisions often led to jarring changes in the tone of a conversation. At one point I swear I was trying to convince someone we needed to stick together and help each other, and two lines later they were trying to convince me that we should work together. O...kay?

Eurogamer:

What's really impressive about our time with Dying Light 2, though, is how Techland's made a world that's really rewarding to explore. The deeper story options make for a richer world, and a better sense of the catastrophe that unfolded beneath the rubble as well as the struggles of those still trying to piece that world together. It's got back some of that rough charm of Dead Island that wasn't such a big part of the original Dying Light, and it takes it to some interesting places too. It might be coming up to seven years since the original for Techland's follow-up to finally release, but if our hours with Dying Light 2 are any indication it's going to have been well worth the wait.

And WCCFTech:

Much like the first game, Dying Light 2: Stay Human’s parkour is the main way to stay alive among the landscape of zombies, volatiles, and human antagonists alike. Melee weapons make up the majority of Aiden’s arsenal, from makeshift weapons of both one-handed and two-handed varieties as well as a bow, the sole ranged weapon I could discover in my brief hands-on session. Numerous thrown weapons also rounded out the abilities to include throwing knives and molotov cocktails, which were perhaps tuned to be a bit too effective in the demo. Environmental objects such as spiked traps and thrown improvised javelins give some extra fighting power but only pop up from time to time throughout the densely populated open world. While Aiden’s skill tree was much a work in progress, some additional powers such as a beefy jump kick to launch zeds off rooftops or straight into those spike traps.

 

[RoSoDude]

Speaking with Tymon Smektala, lead designer on Dying Light 2, he told me that one of the goals this time around was to combine parkour and combat so that players wouldn’t just run to an encounter, stop, kill all the enemies, and then continue on their way. To that end, one of the earliest abilities you get in Dying Light 2 is the ability to vault off an enemy and drop kick another in the face, sending them flying

Huh? This was already in the first game lmofa. Who were the poor sods playing Dying Light without vault dropkicking, slide kicking, grapple throwing, ram tackling, neck snapping, and head stomping in every encounter? The whole fun of the combat was chaining your abilities together with the parkour to throw enemies off of rooftops and smash them apart in creative ways. On Hard and Nightmare difficulties that's virtually required to survive.

Anyway, my comments from watching the impressions videos:

• I don't like the new UI much. Shows less info and does skeumorphic icons in a bad way
• The jump is floatier, which could help with precision air control but also may reduce skillful timing
• There is no sprint button anymore (it's always on); instead you gain speed the longer you maintain forward momentum, which is another incentive to master parkour
• The level design has a lot of stuff to support climbing, you can swing yourself on stuff to chain momentum, once you gain speed it seems really smooth
• The hang glider is cool, you use building air vent gusts to propel yourself upward and you have to fight wind currents to aim yourself. Seems to drain stamina, refreshed by vent gusts
  
• Parkour stamina seems really de-emphasized compared to the E3 2019 footage where you had to carefully manage stamina during certain climbing puzzles
• Combat looks a little strange to me? Could be due to gamepad play, but spacing doesn't seem very important, you can just whack and dodge. Enemy hit reactions are good, something just looks off compared to the first game
• The environments are really cool to look at, greenery on the rooftops and decaying streets below, pretty unique post-apoc aesthetic
• Apparently Volatiles don't roam around at night, instead there are sentry zombies that alert others to give chase, and there are 4 stages of chase that get more aggressive if you don't evade line of sight. Don't know if I like this as much
• The faction choice memes are still in, now more obviously gamified (each faction just has an unlock tree for stuff like ziplines, car bombs, who knows what else) rather than tied in with the narrative as MCA claimed. Not surprised, that was fishy from the start
• Also, dialogue choices are no longer timed, that was just fake urgency in the E3 2019 demo

 

[Ash]

It's coming!!! And I have no means to play it

 

[Infinitron]