A few weeks ago, a Polish-language report suggested that Dying Light 2 development is a “total mess”, after the game underwent a delay to a still-indefinite final date. Developer Techland pushed back on that report at the time, and has more recently given an interview directly addressing the points raised in the PolskiGamedev.pl report.
“The article includes many inaccuracies which we tried to rectify in the materials we provided the author”, senior PR manager Ola Sondej tells The Escapist. Specifically, Sondej disputes the idea that there’s no consistent vision for the game – “the foundations remain the same since we have started work on production” – and that Techland’s Warsaw office has dropped work on a new game to save the main Wroclaw studio – “the Warsaw studio is currently conducting work on our new, yet unannounced, production. Of course, we constitute one company and support each other.”
Techland provided similar comments to PolskiGamedev.pl – and many of them were published in the original report – but they only came to English-speaking audiences by way of second-hand translations.
One of the other big points of contention in the original report was conflict between Techland and external writer, Chris Avellone. Sondej provided a following quote from Avellone, who says “I enjoy working on Dying Light 2, and I enjoy working with Techland. Design elements do get discussed and iterated on, and that’s a normal part of any game development process. In the end, you do the best work you can to support the gameplay and vision for the title; that’s a designer’s job.”
Avellone says that “while [creative director] Adrian Ciszewski and I discussed story, I never felt like there was any conflict. It’s normal for all design elements to be iterated on, not just narrative. Story is a key element for Dying Light 2, and it’s important to the team and I to get it right.”
We also reached out to Avellone, who reaffirmed these quotes.
Lead game designer Tymon Smektala says Techland is in “the last stretch for this project”, but doesn’t commit when asked if the Dying Light 2 release date will land in 2020. “There’s a whole team at Techland that works on the announcement of the release date for the game and every piece of info that accompanies it, and I know they want to surprise players, so I don’t want to spoil it for them or our community.”