Dying Light 2 - Catching Up (2)

Dying Light 2 Interview - "The Best Weapon is Your Creativity"

Ahead of the game's launch, I was lucky enough to chat with Bartosz "Glova" Kulon, the mastermind and lead programmer behind Dying Light 2's combat and parkour mechanics. Here's what he had to say:

Dying Light felt revolutionary with its combination of Parkour and inventive monster-killing abilities - how have you built on this to ensure Dying Light 2 has that same wow factor?

Bartosz "Glova" Kulon: Our approach to it was - make combat and parkour as much integrated together and with the world as possible. We analyzed every move from combat, and every move from parkour and thought of how we can use them in the other. In example, vaulting over a low obstacle is something that happens a lot. We added a kick to that so the player can kick enemies when vaulting, but then in combat if the enemy is hit really hard he can bend and the player can vault over him and use it to kick the enemy behind him. Sounds complicated, but we made it simple and satisfying.

In combat players can run and use enemies to jump in the air and can either use that to perform a strong attack or to run away from danger. We tried to create as open ended situations as possible and give the player the freedom to mix the moves and solution. This sandbox approach is something that we believe was the goal of success in the first game, and will be as well for Dying Light 2.

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Dying Light 2 Interview: Techland Has a 'Very Detailed Plan' for Many Years of Content

Dying Light 2 Stay Human comes seven years after the launch of Techland's original 2015 parkour zombie hit -- and it just might be its magnum opus. We sat down with Lead Gameplay Designer Tymon Smektała for an interview during a recent Dying Light 2 preview event to find out about the work put into this ambitious sequel. Our time with the Techland lead clued us into Dying Light 2 Stay Human's four gameplay pillars, its difficulty, where it's going next, and so much more.

The Escapist: Tell us about Dying Light 2's four gameplay pillars.

Tymon Smektała: Dying Light, as the first game, was built on the parkour, combat, and day-and-night cycle. People liked it, media liked it, but gamers liked it, especially. A lot of people were recommending the game to their friends. So, we said, "Okay, so it makes sense. It works. It's something that we can develop on, that we can build on."

So, we started with a huge list of things we wanted to improve. And looking at them, there were three things I wanted to focus on. The first one was that, in the first game, parkour and combat were kind of separated. So, first of all, we wanted to connect, combine those two together. That's why there are a lot of skills (in Dying Light 2) that allow you to use your enemies as a starting point for parkour combinations or combat skills that require you to stay mobile, stay agile, jump along, and basically be the parkour guy that we are creating, that the fantasy is centered around.

Then, the other thing was, with the day-and-night cycle, we wanted the game to offer two significantly different experiences that ... almost feel like it's two games in one. But I think we went too far with the night in the first game.

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