Dying Light 2

RanceJustice said:
I've had it in my Steam library for a very long time, but its been on my backlog. I'm glad techland is supporting the game well, similar to how they did with the original adding lots of new content apparently much of it free. Some of the comments have shown that some of their updates have disrupted balance or play experience, but other ones may have fixed it so I don't know the current status as i've barely played since testing it out near launch.

One pet peeve I have with both Dying Light games that I've mentioned before is the inability to customize your protagonist's appearance beyond just clothing.. For a multiplayer zombie game, this is annoying to see 4 copies of the identical hero walking around. Its forgivable in DL1 due to Techland being a A/AA studio, but still annoying in all those updates they never changed it. However, for DL2, which was sold as a $60 full price title with a $100 ultimate edition and season pass at launch, i t seems asinine to do it again. I had hoped for basic customization of picking sex and some facial/body config options like hair and eye colors etc..but no apparaently at the start it was playing Aiden somebody instead of Kyle somebody. I remember reading that despite one of the pre-order bits giving you a glider customization for that one character inspired by (voiced?) Rosario Dawson they're not playable. There was some datamined something suggesting that at one point players could choose to play either the male current lead or the rosario dawson character and the one you didn't choose would be the NPC you meet in game, but I guess that was cut.

I don't generally create female avatars, but the lack of a female option in a game with 4 player co-op full priced title from a veteran studio is grating. it woun't hav been difficult to either choose to play as a male or female avatar and then customize the face a bit, and refer to them by a surname. Yes i know it would mean recording more voice lines (or at this point, a LLM with a text to speech engine could do pretty well if they REALL didn't want to bother but that seems unnecessary) from a female speaker but it doesn't seem too much to ask. The claim to be updating the game to add guns out of player demand despite previous rationale for there not being guns (both from a design standpoint and an in-game one) so an update to add customizable avatars including a female playable option doesn't seem unreasonable either. No chance they've done something like that as of yet I'm guessing?
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Dying Light 2 had a production cost of $100 million, which is well into AAA territory. There is no solid number for the first game, but it was estimated to be around $50 million with Warner Bros. funding and publishing the game, which is still AAA territory for the production years of 2012-2014. Couldn't care less about character customization.
 
I played Dying Light 1 (plus The Following expansion) for the first time in Feb 2023 and loved it...was planning on playing DL2 right away but keep putting it off...I'm glad I did as the game keeps adding significant new features and updates making it feel closer in spirit to the first game...maybe the Firearms update will get me to finally start this (but with Dragon's Dogma 2, Forbidden West PC and the inevitable Shadow of the Erdtree release it's looking like DL2 might stay in the backlog for a little while longer)
 
Armenius said:
Dying Light 2 had a production cost of $100 million, which is well into AAA territory. There is no solid number for the first game, but it was estimated to be around $50 million with Warner Bros. funding and publishing the game, which is still AAA territory for the production years of 2012-2014. Couldn't care less about character customization.
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Well, I don't know the particulars on the first game either but it seems a little closer (perhaps putting aside certain publishing/marketing elements paid for by WB) to the A/AA scale of titles such as those published by Focus Interactive; not bad games by any stretch, - often with a budget, scope, and process that is different from "AAA" studios and their publishers, but not indie or first tier publishers either. Though admittedly things a decade or so ago could have been attributed differently.

As far as cosmetic customization, I know not everyone will care about it but it seems a glaring oversight especially in light of A) even Techland's own previous games like the Dead Island series had varied characters and some visual customization of each, which helped the variety of avatars in a 4 player environment and B) Dying Light 1 and 2 both, in their long arc of support, offer clothing-level customizations often as part of paid DLC packs. Go check out the vast majority of Dying Light DLC outside of the expansions and it will be some sort of outfit, and other cosmetics + some sort of themed weapons/blueprints for them. Clearly some customization is seen as desirable and integrated into their monetization strategy. However, the idea of simply having 4 of the same identical protags (regardless of how they're dressed) is awkward for a co-op title. For the original DL one could understand how they didn't want to go through more dramatic changes such as modeling a playable female avatar, another voice actor etc... but you'd think after such things were requested repeatedly (I remember threads on the Stream forums and elsewhere ) at very least they wouldn't make the same mistake for the sequel and instead would have taken one of the several paths to allow players t have some variation, be it picking from multiple character designs to be your protagonist that allow slight tweaks to each one (in the style of a Borderlands , Dead Island, or even Left4Dead/Back for Blood style title), or a more classic "character creation" setup where players choose sex, face and/or body parameters, voice etc. from Skyrim to Cyberpunk 2077 and tons of others; there are many that offer the latter even in case where there is no multiplayer cooperative or otherwise, so it is even more disappointing that Dying LIght 2 did not take at least one of these paths.

Dying Light 2 is by your estimations double the production cost and continued support involves multiple overhauls, including things like the apparent rollout of guns which require lots of new content to be created and even whole new bits of lore, balance, and game systems to explain how a world that was first designed to work without firearms now is implementing them. From a cosmetic standpoint it seems the paid DLC outside of expansions again follows the DL1 style cosmetic outfits/parachutes + weapons , so it seems a rather glaring omission to not allow character customization not just at launch, but not to make it a post launch additional feature overhauling a game system either, yet stil relying on desire for customization for monetization as they sell custom themed gear packs. Even for those who would be fine with the defalt avatar appearance, its more about the principle and the glaring hole in the design thereof.
 
Essentially a free update with guns, improved graphics, and includes the first story DLC. I cannot find any information on the second story DLC though. I assume that is still a long ways out.
 
I bought the base Dying Light 2 game in October 2022...looking in my Steam library it says I now own the new Reloaded Edition but it also shows that I don't own the Bloody Ties DLC...I thought the Bloody Ties DLC came as part of the Reloaded Edition?...Steam no longer allows me to even buy the DLC separately

EDIT: Steam downloaded an update and now I have access to the DLC
 
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Dying Light 2 Reloaded Edition Q&A – Franchise Director Talks Firearms, 10 New Hours of Gameplay, and More

Another big part of the Dying Light 2 Reloaded Edition update is the new quests and missions. Can you talk about them?

Players will get at least 10 hours of additional gameplay, almost like a full-size DLC. First, there's the firearms quest which takes you on a journey that allows you to find out what happened with the firearms. And then you also get the return of Tolga and Fatin from the first Dying Light, which is another adventure that lasts for about three or four hours

Speaking of zombies, you've also announced a visual overhaul for them, right?

We have changed the skyboxes. We have also changed the lighting in the whole game. We have improved tons of textures and meshes for objects present in the open world. We spent some time improving the environmental storytelling in locations like safe zones and hubs.

We have improved or added new types of foliage, like plants, to the open world. The quality is better, there's a bigger variety. And yes, we have also changed the visuals of our zombies mostly focusing on biters, the slow moving ones, and the virals, which are the fast moving ones. We focused on the details of the clothes and also how modular they are, which allows us to create more and more and more of their models.

But I think an even more important thing was overhauling their faces...

https://wccftech.com/dying-light-2-...s-firearms-10-new-hours-of-gameplay-and-more/
 
Unlike the first game I found 2 to be piss easy despite playing entirely at night.
Maybe this will help but I doubt I ever come back this.
 
seems like they purposely leave out advanced graphics settings and features so they can add them in later as part of their 5 year support plan for the game...no point playing a new Techland Dying Light game at launch as it'll be much better after 1- 2 years
 
polonyc2 said:
seems like they purposely leave out advanced graphics settings and features so they can add them in later as part of their 5 year support plan for the game...no point playing a new Techland Dying Light game at launch as it'll be much better after 1- 2 years
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Ha, jokes on me then, I am still having the game crashe on launch with no clue as to why, even installed Win11 to see if that helped.
 
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