Dying Light 2 might intentionally have no tentative release window announced. Perhaps this is the reason why there is a potential acquisition offer in the background?
A Polish website, which has been a credible source about the Polish dev scene, namely PolskieGamedev.pl, has posted an article saying Dying Light 2’s development is in total disarray. An anonymous Techland developer has said the following: „Dying Light 2 is a total mess. First, we had to focus on the story, then focus on gameplay… The game mechanics are changing non-stop. [Our] morale is at an all-time low, and the leadership has no idea what they’re doing. Such disorganization at the highest levels is embarrassing. It is still not known what this game should be. Other [studios] a year before the premiere are worried about fixing bugs. We don’t even have a vertical slice!” By the vertical slice, this person meant essentially the „skeleton” of the game with the basics set in stone.
One of the main reasons behind Dying Light 2 getting derailed is the conflict between the game’s lead writer (Chris Avellone) and the creative director (Adrian Ciszewski). Avellone wants to have a complex, multi-layer RPG-style plot, which doesn’t exactly fit into what Techland wants to make. As expected, Avellone dodges the rumours: „I like working on Dying Light 2, and I like working with Techland. Of course, we discussed individual elements of the project and it changed during subsequent iterations…but this is a normal part of the creation process,” he said.
Ciszewski wanted to get involved in the plot, but the fact that he constantly tinkered with the game resulted in a lot of extra work for the devs, who often saw 9 AM – 10 PM (13-hour) working days. „Our creative lead [Ciszewski] has coined the philosophy ‘design through iteration’ Every time he made an apparently ‘final decision’, it was reverted. People have worked hard thinking they’re almost finished, but they never get to reach the finish line. It burns them out a lot,” an anonymous source says.
Because of the crunch on Dying Light 2, Techland has lost a sixth of its workforce (50 people leaving from a 300-head studio is a massive amount), and one of the people who has left was their former chief of technology, Pawel Rohleder, the creator of their Chrome engine. If that’s not enough, one more rumour: it seems Microsoft wants to acquire the Polish dev team to expand the Xbox Game Studios family with this acquisition.
Techland has responded: Ola Sondej, the PR representative of the company, denied the Microsoft rumour on Twitter, plus Techland also sent WCCFTech a statement: „At Techland, we work as a team and we grow as a team. We are proud that many of our employees have chosen to be with us for years. The mentioned article contains various opinions – from both our employees and anonymous sources. Each opinion matters to us, so we are now carefully analyzing all the topics raised. When it comes to Dying Light 2 – development is moving forward according to our internal schedule we revised at the beginning of the year. We’re remaining independent. We’re not in talks with anyone about being potentially acquired.”
We can’t say much about it – it sounds farcical. Things don’t help when we add that Dying Light 2 is a cross-gen game, meaning it’s in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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