Dying Light 2 Development Update Coming Next Week, Follows Accusations of a Toxic Work Environment at Techland

Techland has “a few words to share” about Dying Light 2 next week in a development update on the game. On March 17th, the studio will share a Dying Light 2 dev update with players, giving early access to people in the Dying Light 2 Discord server.

This comes after reports last month of a toxic and chaotic work environment at Techland, where project leads allegedly lack any kind of unified direction and vision for what they want Dying Light 2 to be and development changes come at the random whims of higher management. After some staff shakeups back in January, Techland had promised that news on Dying Light 2 was coming “soon.” The studio also faced pressure in 2020 when lead writer Chris Avellone met with allegations of sexual misconduct.

This year isn’t the first time Techland has faced criticism, however. Reports arose in May of last year about high turnover and Dying Light 2 being a “total mess.” Since it’s reveal at E3 2018 and gameplay presentation at E3 2019, multiple elements of the gameplay and story have reportedly been shifted, changed, and adjusted. It’s unclear what this upcoming Dying Light 2 development update will have to say, but it seems to come pretty quickly following these most recent reports of turmoil within the studio.

Techland gained acclaim with the development of 2011’s Dead Island, another first-person zombie game. notably, it garnered a lot of acclaim for the unique trailer, which showed the events of the outbreak in reverse. Techland left development of the sequel and forged its own path in the genre with the lauded Dying Light, which utilized parkour elements and a day night cycle. Anticipation and expectation for the sequel were set high before these reports started surfacing last year. Unrelated, Dead Island 2—first announced seven years ago—is also suffering numerous setbacks, so it seems first-person zombie game sequels are a bit cursed.

What do you expect to be shown in the Dying Light 2 dev update? Is Techland finally on track to finish this game (even though similar comments were made last year), or is this simply going to be damage control? We’ll be tuning in on March 17th to see what the studio has to say.