Developer Techland recently issued a statement advising fans to wait to play Dying Light 2: Stay Human in the wake of some players receiving their copies a few days early. Techland has delayed Dying Light 2 multiple since its original E3 2018 unveiling. As many may recall, the open-world zombie sequel initially bore an early 2020 release window; now it's on track to launch approximately seven years after the first entry hit store shelves.
A more serious zombie-centric effort from Dead Island creator Techland, 2015's Dying Light added a few new bells and whistles to the team's established open-world formula. Most notably, parkour mechanics entered the mix, offering verticality and freeform movements that made the experience feel more like Mirror's Edge and less like Techland's previous undead adventure. An inventive day-night cycle heightened the tension as well, with the nighttime proving especially dangerous since it invited more aggressive infected to step out into the open. Fortunately for series veterans, developers have already teased the ways in which difficulty is boosted for Dying Light 2.
Widespread reports note that some fans received their retail copies of Dying Light 2 early, a not so uncommon occurrence. However, what does seem uncommon is Techland advising users against playing the experience before release. A post on the official Dying Light Twitter page "kindly" asks players to wait to explore the open-world city, so they'll have access to the range of improvements that developers have added in the last several weeks. These unspecified changes will remain unavailable to download until the day one patch arrives on February 4, as mentioned in the tweets linked below:
Day one patches can often make or break early user reception of a game. This especially holds true since such last-minute changes usually improve upon technical bugs or other persistent issues that developers didn't have time to address before a project went gold. Hopefully, any presently lingering troubles don't ruin Dying Light 2's incredibly robust experience for those who managed to secure a copy days ahead of launch.
Dying Light 2 seems far more ambitious than its predecessor. Not only has Techland significantly expanded upon combat mechanics, parkour, and enemy design, but the team also went the extra mile to enhance the branching narrative possibilities. Players won't just make decisions that affect the overarching plot, for instance. The layered consequence-based storyline will also allow player choices to impact the open-world metropolis on a granular level. Needless to say, fans are in for a treat when the sequel finally arrives for all.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human hits PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S platforms on February 4.
Source: Dying Light/Twitter