Development hell is a very real place that many will find can act as a sign of what is to come, if anything will ultimately come to light.
Dying Light 2 now appears to very much be trapped within development hell: the date for release was pushed back twice on the sequel of Dying Light, the parkour and fear-inspired 3D action platformer that surprised quite a few people with the tension that they were able to craft with an intricate storyline that only fell wayside occasionally through trope-laden antagonists.
This sore point for some within Dying Light could very well be repeated in Dying Light 2, if it is to ever escape development.
Pawel Selinger, the Art Director and Lead Writer for Techland working on Dying Light 2, has left the company after a monumental twenty-two years as announced on his LinkedIn profile and he wishes Techland and successful product launch of Dying Light 2.
It is plausible that, as a lead writer within the company, his works have already been completed as Techland hammers out the smaller aspects and details of the title development; it’s similarly plausible that the rumored development hell of Dying Light 2, an aspect that was reported on mid-2020 that Techland PR readily dismissed as ‘clickbait’, has infuriated the employee to the point that he left.
Dying Light 2 is still scheduled to have a release sometime within 2021, although the most recent reports of the project being in ‘dire straits’ as multiple individuals are attempting to steer the title, all with middling success which has led to a reportedly haphazard plot and broken mechanics being the primary feature of Dying Light 2 at this point in time.
It’s worth noting, however, that the outlet also reported that Techland was acquired by a publisher which was provably false; the idea that DYing Light 2 would release on time, as stated by the PR representative, was also apparently false. That PR rep has also notably left Techland after seven and a half years.
The two-month notice alleged by the tweet offers interesting context that could be interpreted in multiple ways.
For the foreseeable future, however, nothing much is changing aside from a noticeable shakeup in personnel within Techland being the only news about Dying Light 2 that outlets have been able to get their hands on, along with blanket statements about how everything is ‘fine’.
Techland wouldn’t be the first Polish development studio to struggle to release a title.