For the night-time, all difficulties see reduced Volatiles and Spitters while both receive extensive nerfs. Easy and Normal difficulty also won’t have additional Volatiles spawning in Chase Level 1. Other new features include co-op in Community Maps, access to assets from Bloody Ties, additional prefabs, a pixelated visual filter and low gravity.

The much-anticipated Gear Loadout system also arrives, allowing players to customize four separate loadouts for weapons, gear, accessories and consumables and switch between them. If that wasn’t enough, over 70 scenes and dialogue exchanges have been improved, whether it’s with the character animation, dialogue lighting, FX, transitions to combat or NPC interactions.

Check out the full patch notes for all the details here. Dying Light 2 Stay Human is available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC and will receive its second paid DLC sometime this year.

Nightmare Mode Update Notes

Night Changes

The Nightmare Mode Update will also incorporate various changes to the night itself. We grouped these changes into two sections: all difficulties and Easy/Normal.

Changes made in all difficulties:

• Lowering the number of Volatiles, mostly on the rooftops
• Volatiles are also receiving these nerfs:
  – Vision arc decreased to from 100 °to 90°
  – Recognition time changed for 1-6s (min-max)
• Lowering the number of Spitters in the night population on Difficulty Ranks 1-6
  – Reduced range of hearing player’s footsteps for Biters
  – Reduced visibility of flashlight for Biters by 50%
  – Reduced vision range of Spitters and Suiciders

Changes made only for Easy and Normal:

• Increasing the recognition time for Volatiles:
  – 2 secs, if player is very close to a Volatile; up to 7 secs if player is 20 meters from Volatile
• Removal of Volatiles from Chase Level 1:
  – No additional Volatiles spawn during Chase Level 1

Co-op for Community Maps

Grab your friends and wreak havoc together on maps created by you, our community, because co-op is here! Try to prove yourself as the best Pilgrim amongst your pals or just enjoy the crazy scenarios designed by our players as a group!

But what’s co-op on Community Maps without the Community Maps? That’s why we’re adding a whole bunch of new DevTools functionalities, so our creators can come up with even more creative, challenging and diverse maps. Your toolbox has been expanded with:

• Pixelated visual filter
• Additional prefabs in the Editor
• More gameplay scripts to be overridden
• Colorful rubber skins for meshes
• Bloody Ties assets!

And yes, we heard you! We’re also adding a low gravity functionality! We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Gear Loadout System

In response to your requests, we are introducing the Gear Loadout System to Dying Light 2! In the Inventory menu, you can now switch between 4 customisable loadouts to quickly equip the gear, weapons, consumables and accessories that suit your current needs and playstyle.

Cutscene Improvements

With the Nightmare Mode Update, we’ve updated over 70 scenes and dialogues to improve the overall quality of the cinematics. There’s a lot of changes in terms of improved lighting, smoother (or more advanced) animation, special effects, and many other qualitative changes that should be visually noticeable to the player!

What’s changed?

• Character animation improvements
• Refinement of camera animations
• Improved dialogue lighting
• FX upgrade
• Improved transition from dialogue to combat
• Numerous qualitative improvements to dialogue
• Interaction with some NPCs will be more immersive

Power Shot Skill Rework

We reworked the Power Shot skill to give players more agency. Now, when you charge a power shot, your reticle will begin to shrink. Release it at the right moment to fire a perfect shot for extra damage!

Tactical Stamina Management Mode

We’ve added a new stamina management mode – Tactical Stamina! An intrinsic part of Nightmare mode, with this turned on, stamina regeneration takes longer to kick in, and when exhausted, you’ll only be able to shove until the bar is full again. This preset can be selected via the Game Options panel. And no, you can’t switch it off on Nightmare difficulty!

Main Menu Redesign

The latest update will refresh the design of the Main Menu by enriching its visual layer. Now, the character outfit will be better presented here. Additionally, we want to make the Events & Alterations, Special Offers, and Community Maps more visible by introducing a new information panel on the right side of the screen.

Scalable Player FOV Correction

After the Firearms update, many of you started asking about more FOV (field of view) flexibility and we’ve delivered. With the Nightmare Mode Update, we are adding a slider allowing you to reverse the distortion of the player character when changing the FOV. When set to the default (100%), the player character appears the same regardless of the FOV value and when set to zero, the player character scales accordingly to the FOV.

Grappling Hook Customization

The update also introduces a new skin type, a bespoke one made for one of the most important tools in a Nightrunner’s arsenal: their Grappling Hook! Be sure to visit the Pilgrim Outpost to grab the First Pilgrim Grappling Hook skin for free and swing through the Villedor in style!

Game Updates

Apart from all the big news from the Nightmare Mode Update above, we’ve also introduced the following fixes and improvements to the game:

CO-OP

• Fixed the issue disabling joining multiplayer via Quick Join
• Fixed the issue in the “Ferry Tale Endings” quest causing the generator to turn off and on when attacked by multiple Biters, resulting in failing the mission
• Fixed the issue where blunt attacks to the head counted towards the “Off With Their Heads!” Survivor Mission Bounty
• Improved accuracy of online status information in the Friends section of the Online menu
• Player icons on HUD are now differentiated with different colors
• Player icons on HUD are now properly hidden if the Immersive HUD option selected
• Player icons on HUD are now visible while using the extended HUD option
• Fixed and tweaked several TPP animations
• Fixed the issue with the “Boss Raid” bounty only progressing for the player who last hit the boss when in a full party in any Elite Survivor Mission
• Fixed the animation for Wall Run Kick in TPP
• Fixed the animation of swinging the weapon while the camera is pointed towards ground
• Fixed the missing swing animation upon attacking with the Grubby Bat

Some of its features include lowered immunity from inhibitors, Survivor Sense now only showing weapons and quest items, stamina regeneration taking longer to start (and only shoving is available until it’s full again), and flashlights dimming and flickering when constantly used (with a risk of cutting out). You can also engage in level 5 chases with Tyrants, and entering your menus won’t pause the game, making crafting much more terrifying.

Volatiles are more short-sighted, but chases will trigger more quickly, health doesn’t automatically regenerate, and players have reduced armor and resistance. Furthermore, dying en route to your next Legend Level will cause all XP to be lost, though it only applies from level 50 onwards. The tradeoff is a higher chance to loot rare items and receive more Legend Points than other difficulties.

If you survive and finish the campaign on Nightmare Mode (New Game Plus also counts), you unlock the Waltz Outfit. Dying Light 2 Stay Human is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Check out our review here and stay tuned for more details on this massive new update.

According to franchise director Tymon Smektala, though cross-play is definitely something that the development team at Techland is “considering”, for now, it doesn’t seem to be a priority, with the studio looking to allocate its resources to adding features it feels would bring more value to the game.

Speaking in an interview with MP1st, Smektala said, “It’s still an option we’re considering yet all of it is a matter of managing priorities, resources, and real value of various features. The dream is still there!”

At launch, Dying Light 2 didn’t support cross-gen co-op either, but Techland eventually ended up adding that into the game, so the hope is that cross-play will be following suit.

Recently, Dying Light 2 also added firearms and new content with the Firearms Update. A second paid expansion is also expected to release for the game sometime this year.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.