We Talk Dying Light 2 With Tymon Smektała, Lead Designer At Techland

Recently I spoke with Tymon Smektała, Lead Designer at Techland about Dying Light 2

What is the background and setting for the game?

Dying Light 2 takes place about 15 years after the events of the first game. We move far away from Harran, to a new city, perhaps the last human settlement that still stands after all these years of apocalypse. It’s located somewhere in Europe, so expect plenty of visual inspirations from places like Berlin, Paris, Madrid, basically all big european metropolises… including Wroclaw, our home city. We follow a new hero, Aiden Caldwell, who enters the city looking for a cure for his condition… without knowing what to expect inside. What he experiences there is the whole story of Dying Light 2 – he’s a catalyst to the event that will shape the fate of this stronghold.

How much does it follow from the storyline/events of the first game.

It’s a new location, new hero, new timeframe… but of course we adore our heroes as much as the fans of Dying Light all around the world, so expect quite a few surprises, reveals and unexpected appearances. And of course it’s the same universe, so we took the lore from the first game and asked ourselves what would happen with this infection, with this world, almost two decades later.

What is new this time around in terms of actions, movements, etc?

Quite a lot, and I’m safe to say we have touched, reworked and retweaked every feature of the first game, no matter how minor. To be honest we had to, since Dying Light 2 uses a completely new technology, our in-house engine called C-Engine. It’s a tailored right to our needs – to create immersive, high fidelity, first person open world games. So we have doubled the number of parkour moves, added a lot of new combat options (like gory finishers for example), and improved every little bit of our game. It really is killing us to have to wait so long for people around the world to experience it.

What is behind the recent delay of the game?

Sometimes, a gift can be a curse, and a lot of those new things implemented into the game have also caused us headaches. The new technology presents challenges, we had to spend time getting to grips with it. New moves and features improve the gameplay a lot, but it also means we cannot use the old approach to things like balance for example. But, the fact that in Dying Light 2, you really do shape The City and the environment around you in a multitude of ways, means that we need to take the time to make the best experience possible for our players. See, usually you just need to test and polish one game, but in Dying Light 2 players can generate hundreds of states… and we have to make sure all of them are up to par. So please, bear with us a little bit – we just want to make sure that you’ll get a high quality product that you deserve and we’re proud to give you.

Will the game be available for Next Gen systems as well as current Gen?

We’ll have more to share on this in the near future!

Will PC players be able to use a keyboard or is a gamepad suggested?

Gamepad is suggested but Dying Light is perfectly playable on keyboard and mouse setup as well. And of course it’s easy to configure, so you’ll be able to create any control scheme you want.

Will the game offer any Multiplayer or Co_op?

Yes, 4 player co-op is a big thing for Dying Light 2. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s a highly social experience, but the best thing about it is that as you play and make choices they define the city around you and then when you invite other players for a co-op session they play in your version of The City. But when you go and visit their cities you get to see different views, sometimes quite radically different.

Have you made any adjustments based on feedback from the impressive E3 demo?

We were incredibly proud to get very positive feedback, and if there were any requests to change things they were rather minor ones. Obviously we take that very humbly and certainly don’t believe we have all the answers. Thankfully we’ll be showing more of the game soon, so there will be way more opportunities to hear what people think about it.

What are some of the weapons players will have this time out?

Dying Light 2 is all about brutal melee combat, so expect the majority of weapons from that field. Axes, machetes, hammers, maces, bludgeons, katanas – all that good stuff that you expect from us. There’s new stuff as well but I cannot reveal everything just yet.

What is new in terms of Crafting?

Quite a lot but, again, it’s too early to spoil it all. One thing I can say is we’re aiming for Dying Light 2 to be more tactical, so with crafting, and especially weapon modifications, we give you more control over when and how you trigger their effects.

Will the game have paid DLC and free content post launch?

Yes, the plan is to support the game for as long as the original Dying Light at a minimum. Bear in mind we’re still adding things to the first one five years after its release…

What can you tell us about the music in the game?

I’m very proud of it as it’s being composed by Olivier Deriviere who, in my opinion, will one day be considered as one of the greats like Jesper Kyd, Akira Yamaoka or Inon Zur. His music and sound composition is already bringing an elevated level of tension and emotion to Dying Light 2, and I think fans are going to be incredibly pleased with it.