Dying Light 2: Stay Human, the first-person zombie parkour game slated for a December 7 release, has been delayed, developer Techland announced in a tweet today. It’ll now come out on February 4, 2022, for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, contributing to what’s shaping up to be the most stacked release month of all time, ever.
This is the latest bump on a rocky road for Dying Light 2, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2015’s enormously popular Dying Light. First announced in 2018 and initially planned for a spring 2020 release, it was delayed indefinitely in January 2020. But Techland kept the community appraised of its status through intermittent development updates and the Dying 2 Know video series.
Techland later came under fire for one such video this March. In the clip, developers read out expletive-ridden vitriolic messages left by unpleasant “fans,” all for jokes, before then apologising to such people — a move that critics said played right into some of the gaming community’s worst impulses.
Today’s announcement didn’t make that mistake. And curiously, unlike other recent high-profile delays, Techland didn’t cite the complications of working during a pandemic as a reason for the delay. Rather, the company noted that the game just needs a touch more work.
“The game is complete and we are currently playtesting it…Unfortunately, we’ve realised [that] for us to bring the game to the level we envision, we need more time to polish and optimise it,” the developer wrote. “We are sorry to keep you all waiting a little longer, but we want the game to meet your highest expectations on release and we don’t want to compromise on this.”
Every early look at Dying Light 2 has indicated a game that offers more — more zombies, more action, a more fleshed-out city — of what made the first one such a standout. It looks, so far, like a solid game that could be another runaway hit for the studio. But the new release date means it’ll have some serious competition. Dying Light 2 now lands smack in the middle of a stacked field that includes Sifu, Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, Rainbow Six Extraction, Pokémon Legends Arceus, and the next major expansion for Destiny 2.
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