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Dying Light 2 Stay Human - zombie survival with choice & consequence

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
Dying Light was kool but story sucked, this gonna be gud :D

I had a good fucking laugh at it getting to the halfway point assuming it was some deliberately bad, "ironic" storyline, only for the bad guy to do a "KHHHHANNN!" yell at the protag that made me realize it was dead serious.

:lol:
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister

This is some next level storytelling right here ... I mean next level as in bad or retarded.

The story in the first game doesn't make much sense but at least the zombies were believable cause the story took place after the original outbreak.

But 15 years later!? No fucking way. Either people feed them on purpose or they don't know what to do with them. It's probably hard to do a sequel to a zombies game without the actual zombies ... but 15 years of zombies running around don't make sense either.

Actually it made some sense. John Ringo and his fans discussed it in his FB a while ago and the short conclusion is:

Rats! Rats will eat all the canned foods that the dumb zombie can not eat. Which mean an explosion of rat population. Ergo: rat meat. This mean the zombies can chase after the rats into the underground, in which case they can survive the ice cold winter somewhat. The zombie pop will take a hit for exposure , bad hygiene, disease, etc... but with several billions of humans it take years to cut them down.

Think about it: the silos' and containers' uncooked wheat and rice? The amount will be seriously staggering. The feeds (hay, rice husk, grain, nuts....) for the nonexistent animal husbandry? It will be even more staggering.

I cant say if fifteen years is possible, as it require some hard numbers and math people to crunch them. But I do say there's some solid calculations behind the "several years after the first outbreak" setting.
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
3,535
Techland is taking the story, writing and quests for upcoming zombie parkour game Dying Light 2 very seriously.

Not only has it hired the talent of designer Chris Avellone to shape the game, but it has also hired writers from CD Projekt RED who worked on The Witcher 3’s Bloody Baron quest.

The Bloody Baron quest lines in The Witcher 3 are held up as examples of some of the best writing in the game, with a series of events and decisions that force the player and the characters involved through emotional and compromising situations.

“This is very ambitious, so we knew we needed some help,” Techland told VG247 at E3 this week. “So we asked Chris Avellone, the master of non-linear story telling to help us with this challenge.

“We also got some additional help in the form of the former The Witcher 3 writing team. Those guys were responsible for some of the best quests from that game including the Bloody Baron quest line. All of those guys are working very hard to create a narrative – it’s like a puzzle to play with.”

Dying Light 2’s world will be shaped by the choices the player makes. Making political decisions to help or hinder particular factions will determine how citizens in the city react and are treated, as well as your access to different resources.

“As you play the game you will make many difficult dilemmas and you will make difficult choices by gameplay, by dialogue, by exploration. The choices you make will transform the world around you,” said Techland.

https://www.vg247.com/2018/06/14/dying-light-2-bloody-baron-witcher-3/
 

typical user

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 30, 2015
Messages
957
I never was much of a fan of first Dying Light - probably because I played more than I should. The game was generic and repetitive. I have a feelings it will be the same grind and shallowness with the sequel - with Avellone on board or not.
 

ScrotumBroth

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2018
Messages
1,288
Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Is Karolina Stachyra involved, or is this a marketing ploy?

Yes, she seems to be working there: https://pl.linkedin.com/in/karolina-stachyra-1661a0a5

Wow, narrative lead... Imagine having Avellone under you after one successful gig.

Would rather imagine that chick under me if you know what I obviously mean.

Of course, but imagine if Avellone and her had a kid, it would literally be the Chosen One of the RPG writing, born to lead us out of the dark age of decline.
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
Is Karolina Stachyra involved, or is this a marketing ploy?

Yes, she seems to be working there: https://pl.linkedin.com/in/karolina-stachyra-1661a0a5

Wow, narrative lead... Imagine having Avellone under you after one successful gig.

Would rather imagine that chick under me if you know what I obviously mean.

Of course, but imagine if Avellone and her had a kid, it would literally be the Chosen One of the RPG writing, born to lead us out of the dark age of decline.

Don't underestimate me, my kid with her would re-re-redefine the RPG!
 

ScrotumBroth

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2018
Messages
1,288
Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Is Karolina Stachyra involved, or is this a marketing ploy?

Yes, she seems to be working there: https://pl.linkedin.com/in/karolina-stachyra-1661a0a5

Wow, narrative lead... Imagine having Avellone under you after one successful gig.

Would rather imagine that chick under me if you know what I obviously mean.

Of course, but imagine if Avellone and her had a kid, it would literally be the Chosen One of the RPG writing, born to lead us out of the dark age of decline.

Don't underestimate me, my kid with her would re-re-redefine the RPG!

Let me see...

Every pixel tells a different story yo!

tenor.gif
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Never played Dying Light but heard some favorable things about it but this sounds very interesting
After watching Walking Dead TV show flounder with the same premises (find new place, fight local humans, get the hell out of there rinse and repeat) that never amounted to anything it will be interesting to see an actual society evolve out of the zombie apocalypse
Different factions that actually affect the gameworld sounds just about right for Avellone and I honestly think that it works great for everybody, he immediately gives the game credibility with older RPG fans who might just give the game a chance for his writing
 

Oracsbox

Guest

I'm really looking forward to this.I enjoyed the first game a lot it was fast and fluid with expansive maps and the ability to have fun in them,all it needed for a sequel was stronger writing and an expansion in game mechanics and it looks like Techland thought the same.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/06/18/dying-light-2-preview-e3-2018/

Dying Light 2 is making the sun your new best friend
dying-light-2-preview-1-620x300.jpg


A room full of mannequins is rarely a safe place in videogames, but in Dying Light 2 it looks especially unnerving. Welcome to a zombie nest, where dozens of shamblers sleep during the day, huddling together in the shade of an abandoned clothes shop. They sleep upright, like decomposing commuters nodding off in a packed tube carriage. The best thing to do when you enter one of these “dark places” is to stay low, quiet and – oh god they’re awake get out get out leap through the window climb a drainpipe throw yourself through that door get back to the sunlight go go go.

Zombie parkour wizards Techland showed off a short Dying Light 2 demo during Microsoft’s conference at E3. But I went behind closed doors for a longer demonstration, helmed by lead designer Tymon Smektała. The takeaway: they’ve turned the dials up on everything. The sequel will have twice the amount of parkour manoeuvres, the urban map will be four times bigger, the day and night cycle has been re-worked, and it’ll have a city that changes based on which factions you suck up to. Get into bed with the strict Peace Keepers, for example, and you might find new shortcuts opening up faster routes across the city. Share your stained mattress with bandit groups and you’ll get a cut of their earnings as they exploit the survivors of the city for profit.

Basically, Techland want the story to react to you, rather than leading you down a narrow back alley full of uninspired talking heads. They seem to have acknowledged criticism of the previous game’s story, and have drafted in Chris Avellone to direct the forking paths of this one. But they’ve also got other scribes working on it, including Karolina Stachyra, one of the writers of the Bloody Baron quest in The Witcher 3.

But maybe you’re not here for a tale. Maybe you’re here to kick people off a roof. That’s what Smektała is soon showing me and an assortment of my fellow journo scum.

We see the player hopping across the cityscape (we didn’t get to play, just watch). It’s a fictional city but based chiefly on European architecture, with crumbling cathedrals, clock towers, neoclassical arches, and makeshift windmills. Fifteen years of apocalypse has turned this eurocity into an unkempt ruin. As Smektała puts it, we have entered a “modern dark ages”. We slide under railings, skip across the tops of lamp posts, balance on wires, swing from ropes, and slide down the front of a giant fabric advertisement. They’ve clearly aimed to build on the “floor is lava” conceit that our Adam loved so much from the original.

Later, we see our lad clambering up a water tower, a so-called “parkour puzzle”. This is a slower, more thoughtful ascent requiring lots of pausing and looking around for footholds and ledges. You have a stamina bar visible at all times, and some ascents will require pulling off multiple wallruns, leaps and grabs in a flawless sequence. It’s the tower climbing we all know and lovehate, but with a robust library of parkour moves. The stamina bar seems there to keep you honest, a limitation Zelda players will know well.

“We had stamina in the first game as well,” says Smektała, “but it wasn’t used to the same extent.”

At first this seems like a concern. Why would you want a white bar holding your hands and feet hostage in a game that’s supposed to make you feel like a nimble chimney sweep? But the devs say it won’t be a constant presence. Parkouring across the city won’t normally require stamina, it’ll only appear in stressful moments like chases or during those parkour puzzles. And this bar can be upgraded as you go along.

dying-light-2-preview-3-620x300.jpg


We keep climbing the water tower. Against convention, reaching the summit doesn’t result in a swirling camera or a splatter of icons on a minimap. Instead, the tower is home to a couple of angry fellas with sharp implements: two raiders called Jack and Joe who want a little chat. Some dialogue options appear. Depending on how you speak to them, you’ll either get into some fisticuffs or become best buds. In this demo, the developer elected to fight.

It’s the same weighty melee combat from before. Some very heavy attacks from the raiders knock our boy on his feet, but he scrambles back up and slashes back, cutting off a raider’s head with brutal, ridiculous efficiency. You’ll be able to pick up objects too, they say, objects like this bucket, which they launch at the skull of an enemy with comic force. Now our plucky roofhopper is bashing at the final baddie a few times, knocking him toward a ledge. He swings from a monkey bar and kicks him off the tower. It’s a fierce, scrappy little encounter and it takes enough effort that fighting more than two or three human enemies at a time looks to be a challenge.

dying-light-2-preview-2-620x300.jpg


Non-human enemies are another story. Zombies that hang out in the sun for too long become ravaged, weakened “degenerates” who can’t fight for spit. There are a few of these roaming the streets. But most zombies are now smart enough to keep out of the sun. They do this by hiding in “dark places”, indoor areas inhabited by crowds of the undead, slumbering during the day but out-and-about once night falls. Regular zombies have basically been given the sheltering instincts of the Volatiles from the previous games, nasty, speedy deadheads who pursued you at night but would run for shelter if the sun came up.

The clothes shop I mentioned earlier is one of these undead boltholes. The dev at the controls decides to creep inside this shop, to avoid a group of street thugs outside. At first glance, it’s hard to tell mannequin from maneater. The sound of snoring, grumbling zombies makes it clear there’s too many to take on by yourself. We’re told that these nests are good looting grounds, but to scavenge it properly it’s best to return when the sun is down and the decaying residents are out looking for their supper. For now, our hero tries to sneak through.

“Don’t shine your flashlight on them,” says Smektała. “Don’t get too close. Don’t make to much noise.”

dying-light-2-preview-4-620x300.jpg


But of course, they want to show off what happens when you do make noise. Our boy gets into a small scuffle and knocks over a shelf. The sleepers snap to attention. He quickly legs it, clambers to the top floor and busts out onto the rooftop, a final zombie giving chase. But when this last zed follows our lad out into the sun, it suddenly recoils in anguish, flailing its arms about and being generally unhappy. This is an interesting addition to the childlike rules of Dying Light’s world. Now, not only is the floor lava, but the light is a protective shield, your strongest ally in a world of shadow-dwelling monsters.

“In the first game, it wasn’t really that different,” says Smektała when I ask him about the revamped daily cycle. “During the day you had the zombies, and during the night you had the zombies and they were faster, and there was one new enemy type that could chase you around the level.

“What happens right now is the day is completely different from the night. The day is mostly for humans, it shows a more human side of our game in terms of narrative and also in terms of gameplay and combat and everything…”

As for those speedy perils of the night, the Volatiles, we didn’t see any. The sun stayed up throughout the demo, but it’s easy to guess that these scarier enemy types will be returning, accompanied by some other familiar and unfamiliar terrors.

dying-light-2-preview-8-620x300.jpg


The water tower dust-up wasn’t the only scrape our boy got himself into during the demo. Another encounter with some looters led to a hasty retreat across rooftops, the pursuers firing at him with arrows. This is a world in which guns have basically been lost to the ravages of armageddon. There’ll be bows and crossbows, but submachine guns and bazookas are a distant memory. Melee combat is definitely the focus. And if you don’t want to be dealing with hostile beardos all the time, you’ll have to make the city more secure.

Teaming up with the Peace Keepers is one way to do that. The developers fast forward in time and show us how the city changes when you sidle up to them. The streets are now patrolled by boys in blue with big sticks, keeping bandits away and clearing out “dark places”. Banners and warning signs are hanging in the streets, but so are a handful of bodies – the corpses of anyone who breaks Peace Keeper law. But they’ve also set up water fountains where you can replenish your health, thanks to that water tower we salvaged. And there are pulleys and lifts to make some climbs quicker. It’s that classic political trade-off: give up liberty and justice for comforts and “security”. A fledgling authoritarian government.

But we’re also shown a glimpse of the thirsty world that would have been if we’d been friendlier to those looters in the water tower. Jack and Joe are now selling the water, which means no health-restoring fountains. However, since we’re complicit, we get a chunk of the proceeds. They’ve also set up some UV blockades – installments of UV lights that keep even regular zombies at bay.

dying-light-2-preview-6-620x300.jpg


“Everything flows in the right direction,” says one of the raider boys, handing over your cut of the water cash.

These bandits and Peace Keepers won’t be the only ones vying for control of the city’s resources, we’re told. It’s less like the two-sided turf wars of Far Cry and more a city of multiple neo-tribes, with your decisions about each piling up on top of one another.

“It’s not like you make a binary choice,” says Smektała. “Each decision yields different outcomes, and when you see those outcomes layering on top of each other, then you can get completely different combinations of gameplay elements and visuals in your city.”

I’m also told that each group will have attitudes and relationships with one another, sometimes hostile, sometimes not. It isn’t clear right now who else will show up, or how detailed this web of factions will be in practice, but one settlement we’re told can pop up (under certain conditions) is La Puerta, a black market of “advanced” weaponry and illegal substances. It might be worth getting these wheeler dealers on your good side, say the devs, so long as you don’t mind riling up the control-obsessed Peace Keepers.

dying-light-2-preview-5-620x300.jpg


It sounds ambitious, all these interlocking factions. But it also sounds like a good excuse to have those “what did you do?” conversations with friends. Of course, you could just drop into your friend’s game, to see how their city is coming along. Up to four player co-op is possible, say the devs. Each player will retain their own version of the world, and you can enter your friend’s bandit-dominated cesspit, or invite them into your Peace Keeper “paradise”. In other words, someone will always act as host.

So far they seem to be ticking off every “could be improved” box from the first game. Another of the flaws of the first Dying Light was its overlong introduction. I ask Smektała if this is something they’ve tried to avoid in the sequel. Yes, they want to get to the fun parts a little faster, he says, but he also defends the need for at least some scene-setting.

“I think it’s quicker this time around, for sure, but I think a world like ours needs some introduction. We can’t just drop you in there and expect you to be able to survive and understand what is happening there, so there is a short introductory sequence where you learn who are and why you need to do whatever it is you need to do… Of course we don’t throw everything at you at the start of the game, but I think it will be quicker than the first game.”

dying-light-2-preview-7-620x300.jpg


Having seen all the rooftop perambulations they’ve got to show, I’m now deep in fishing-for-information mode. Smektała won’t say much about the competitive multiplayer side of things, but he does say to “expect some surprises”. I bring up Bad Blood, their upcoming standalone multiplayer game set in the same zedhell that will pit 12 people against one another in a not-quite-battle-royale stand-off. Smektała says this is something the team is “learning from”.

“As for Bad Blood, this is a smaller team that works within our Wroclaw studio, they sit basically desk to desk with us, so we exchange experiences and we see what they’re doing, we learn [from] what they’re doing, what kind of feedback they get from players… and also they can use our expertise… there’s plenty to share.”

He won’t say more than that just yet. Well, he does have one thing to offer: whatever PvP multiplayer they decide to have, it definitely won’t be a full fat battle royale.

dying-light-2-preview-9-620x300.jpg


“There’s no battle royale in Dying Light 2,” he says. “There are no plans to do this. That’s something I can say for sure. Because battle royale games, when you look at them, there’s one or two that are played by people. Of course the genre gets popular, but it gets popular because there are those behemoths that a lot of people play.

“I don’t think it’s good for the industry, for the market, for the games themselves, that every game has it. Because you cannot be master of everything. So in Dying Light 2 that is not our focus. That’s not the game we would like to make. If we [wanted] to make a battle royale game, then it would be a battle royale game, and not some narrative sandbox, complex stuff that also has a battle royale mode.”

Techland sounds like a studio that knows what it wants. It also seems to understand the power of harnessing simple fears, in a very Doctor Who way. They’re making a baddie out of darkness, a lava pit out of street level, and a useful pal out of sunshine. All of this within the traditional zombie apocalypse survival fantasy. Fans of the studio might lament the neglect of Hellraid, the magical dungeon crawler that was put on hold. (“It’s still in the freezer,” says Smektała when I ask about this. “Perhaps some day our CEO Pavel will say okay, it’s time to take it out of the freezer. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for this…”) But I’m happy to see Dying Light get a follow-up. Even if it does mean tip-toeing around in a shop full of mannequins and face munchers.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/120890-dying-light-2-e3-2018-impressions.html

PC Gamer is impressed with the game's stunning setting:

In order to get to the water tower to speak with the smugglers, the character had to navigate a series of tense and deadly jumps inside the tower itself. It's something that was in Dying Light, but with the added pressure of a stamina meter slowly ticking down as you read the environment and plot your next jump. When the player barely made it to safety after a series of wall runs and rope swings with only a sliver of stamina left, I caught myself holding my breath.

It's these big expansions of Dying Light's core systems that, when coupled with its vivid new look, make Dying Light 2 one of the coolest games I saw at E3. Smektala tells me that when the concept artists showed the team their first ideas for what a Modern Dark Age would look like, it "blew their minds." There was a moment during the demo as the sun was setting behind the expanse of gothic architecture that gave me an inkling of that sensation. It was a scene that felt timeless.​

Rock, Paper, Shotgun mentions the game's co-op elements:

It sounds ambitious, all these interlocking factions. But it also sounds like a good excuse to have those “what did you do?” conversations with friends. Of course, you could just drop into your friend’s game, to see how their city is coming along. Up to four player co-op is possible, say the devs. Each player will retain their own version of the world, and you can enter your friend’s bandit-dominated cesspit, or invite them into your Peace Keeper “paradise”. In other words, someone will always act as host.

So far they seem to be ticking off every “could be improved” box from the first game. Another of the flaws of the first Dying Light was its overlong introduction. I ask Smektała if this is something they’ve tried to avoid in the sequel. Yes, they want to get to the fun parts a little faster, he says, but he also defends the need for at least some scene-setting.

“I think it’s quicker this time around, for sure, but I think a world like ours needs some introduction. We can’t just drop you in there and expect you to be able to survive and understand what is happening there, so there is a short introductory sequence where you learn who are and why you need to do whatever it is you need to do… Of course we don’t throw everything at you at the start of the game, but I think it will be quicker than the first game.”​

GameSpot praises the game's expansive open world:

Dying Light 2 looks to advance upon many of the core pillars of the original, while also adding in a surprisingly dense, and varied approach to its core story. While you can expect to find many of the pulse-pounding action sequences, and fast-paced traversal mechanics, there's definitely a more thoughtful approach to how it asks players to tackle the story. With the game being four-times larger than the original, Dying Light 2 could be a major upgrade from the original, and that in itself is a major accomplishment.​

Gamereactor mentions the game's "Modern Dark Ages" setting:

"When people think of medieval times they think of things like intrigue, betrayal, infidelity, all of the things you see in say Game of Thrones," lead designer Tymon Smektała told Gamereactor. "That's the inspiration for the narrative, so in this game, you can be the Machiavelli of this world who tries to play with those people trying to feel in control and be the master of it and create the outcome in the end that he wants."

This naturally forces some adjustments to how co-op works, and basically, any additional players will join the game world of the host, and they won't affect choices and decisions made by the host. Story progression won't carry over (naturally), even if some character progression will. In some ways, this is a disappointment, but on the other hand, it will also mean that playing co-op you will allow players to experience how the decisions of others have changed the city differently to yours.​

And PCWorld seems genuinely excited about this upcoming game:

Of all the games at E3 2018, Dying Light 2 was probably my biggest surprise. I already knew I wanted to play Metro: Exodus and Cyberpunk 2077, but not only was I unaware Dying Light 2 was so imminent, I never expected Techland to invest so heavily in its writers. It’s a zombie game, after all. Kick the undead, chop off their heads. I probably would’ve played a sequel even if that were all we got.

To come out swinging instead with Dying Light 2, this enormous game with an equally ambitious story behind it? Wow.

And I’m excited to see where it takes us. “Decide the fate of a decaying metropolis.” That’s what Techland said during our demo, and there were even hints The City might not exist at the end if you make certain choices. Not too surprising after the bleak ending of The Following (play it if you haven’t), but grim in comparison to most games of this scope. Luck might not be enough this time​
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,927
Too bad Techland are a bunch of jews who sell their games in Poland at the same prices that Ubisoft does (i.e. 2x the price of Witcher 3 on release, not counting DLC), so I'm never going to buy their shit unless it's 75% off.

E:
imT8DSP.png

kLqwiee.jpg
 
Last edited:

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Personally, after thinking a little, this scenario of Avellone working for Techland isn't that bad, it could be worse and he could be working on Fallout 76 or another AAA live service micro transaction scamming fest. Sure, he could be working on the perfect codexian dream fan game but the dude must do what is best for him and wasting years on some indie rpg with a team without any decent experience that could go under before even released, as many such projects do, isn't a good idea, sure would make us codexers happy but the reality is that the gaming industry, especially on RPGs, is fucked up. If it was my career, I would do the same.
 

Oracsbox

Guest
I think the youtuber is slightly overreacting this early but still a worrying development.

LGBTQ and inconcloooooosive confirmed
:imperialscum:
 

Makabb

Arcane
Shitposter Bethestard
Joined
Sep 19, 2014
Messages
11,753
and Bethesda with Fallout 76 is the only one without this SJW BS loooooooool
 

Oracsbox

Guest
and Bethesda with Fallout 76 is the only one without this SJW BS loooooooool
:notsureifserious:
You are joking right ?
Bethesda games are the height of deviance,fallout 4 let you fuck a robot ! Or anyone else,man woman or ghoul.
Fallout 76 will be full of deviants online.
 

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