Dying Light 2 was one of the most ambitious titles coming out this year, but it was unfortunately delayed indefinitely near the beginning of the year. While delays happen, and god knows they happened a lot at the start of this terrible year, it seems that the delay could be the symptom of something gone array behind the scenes. An article from a Polish site paints such a picture, though it is definitely a messy story.
Polskigamedev posted an explosive exposé that painted the behind the scenes at Techland as a messy one, and the development of Dying Light 2 in bad shape. The piece posts alleged interviews from several anonymous employees saying that a large part of the conflict comes down to Writer Chris Avellone and Creative Director Adrian Ciszewski, both of who have different ideas of what the game should be. Avellone wants to create more of a grand RPG ala Fallout, where as Ciszewski wants to create something more in line with the original Dying Light only bigger in scope. The article paints a picture of a game being constantly torn between those two elements, with major parts of the game being retooled constantly, leading to a stressful development that has hampered the game’s progress significantly with some feeling it impossible it will be ready by the end of 2020.
Now, it is worth mentioning here that when the story first broke, a lot of the translations came from Google translate as well as Twitter user Lotte May (of which you can see the full Twitter thread through here, and a select amount below). Wccftech reached out to Techland about the article and did get a response. While they did not outright deny the article’s content, they did say that it needed to be clear this was from the opinions of various people, including known employees and unnamed anonymous sources. They say they will ‘analyze’ the contents, but did claim they are running by their own internal development schedule.
“At Techland, we work as a team and we grow as a team. We are proud that many of our employees have chosen to be with us for years.
“The mentioned article contains various opinions – from both our employees and anonymous sources. Each opinion matters to us, so we are now carefully analyzing all the topics raised. When it comes to Dying Light 2 – development is moving forward according to our internal schedule we revised at the beginning of the year.”
Due to the language barrier and all of the people involved, it definitely is a messy, messy story. Unfortunately, even with the comment from Techland, things are not looking good for Dying Light 2 at the moment.
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