Dying Light 2 is much more of an RPG
One of the most surprising things about Dying Light 2’s reveal was the announcement that Chris Avellone – a famed games writer known for his work on multitudes of RPGs, from Divinity: Original Sin 2 to Fallout: New Vegas – has been assisting Techland with designing the game’s story, which is now far more ambitious than Kyle Crane’s linear tale in Dying Light.
In Dying Light 2, the plot is an organic, reactive entity that can weave in multiple directions, depending on how you decide to respond to situations in the zombie apocalypse. In turn, your actions will affect the world around you, from the threat level of its populace to the scarcity of its resources.
In a recent interview with our sister publication, Official Xbox Magazine, leader designer on Dying Light 2, Tymon Smektala explained how Dying Light 2 reacts to your good and bad decisions, and the fact the game allows you certain ways to fix a costly mistake:
“I think the biggest thing will be the ability to change the world around you. The moment when you make a decision or you perform some action in the game and you see that the world has changed, you see what kind of power we give you from the actions to the decisions you make,” says Dying Light 2’s Lead Designer Tymon Smektala. “So sometimes in crucial moments for the narrative where we feel there’s a space for you to think back and realise that maybe what you decided to do wasn’t the thing you really wanted to do, even if that’s not a ‘good’ thing… there are a couple of instances where we give you a chance to rewrite those decisions.”
“It’s not like you can like go back to the moment of that decision and just change it,” Smektala told Official Xbox Magazine. “You need to do some additional stuff, like complete a couple of extra missions, to fix the things that you think you wronged. But apart from those rare instances, all of the decisions are permanent.”