E3 2018: Dying Light 2 Will Be A "Narrative Sandbox" Where Your Actions Shape Your Environment

Dying Light 2 is the upcoming sequel to Dying Light, but developer Techland says it will take the game in new directions not seen before. Dying Light 2 will be a "narrative sandbox," where the player decisions you make permanently shape the world around you, adding a huge new layer of player freedom.

Dying Light 2 is set 15 years after the events of Dying Light, in a "modern dark age." Humanity has been devastated in the war against the Infected, and now surviving factions of human beings are vying for control of what may be the last city on earth. How you interact with those factions and whom you choose to align yourself with will have considerable long-term impacts on the physical world around you (like in the image below, which shows the same city district after making two different decisions). Of course, you'll be doing all this while battling hordes of zombies, too.

Dying Light 2's lead designer, Tymon Smektala, says the game is about choices, and players will have their morals and ethics tested. The game was unveiled during Microsoft's E3 2018 press conference, where narrative director Chris Avellone spoke about the "genuine consequences" that come from actions in the game.

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Dying Light 2 will also be much larger that the original game; the city you inhabit is four times the size of all the levels in Dying Light. Like the first game, parkour plays a large role in getting around (and staying alive). There's no official release date yet, but Techland says the game will be coming in 2019.