Hi, it’s Tymon here! Good to be back so soon. Last week, we shed some light on our Community Ideas initiative. I told you a bit about our approach and methods of getting your suggestions included in the game. I think it’s a fantastic project and your input in the constant shaping of Dying Light 2 Stay Human is incredibly valuable to us.
Today, I have the pleasure of letting you know that another one of your ideas goes live in just a couple of days! I’m talking about Nightmare Mode, also known as Nightmare Difficulty, which will provide the most challenging experience in the world of Dying Light 2 Stay Human. It requires total concentration and extreme caution on the part of the player and, in turn, delivers the highest level of immersion yet.
The main inspiration for this feature was, of course, a similar mode from the first Dying Light game – but we wouldn’t be ourselves without adding a lot of new and refreshed elements on top. Also, while implementing the changes to health stats and mob toughness, we paid attention especially to Volatiles, because we wanted to make sure they retain their status of the ultimate night predators.
To get you even more immersed in the terrifying world of our game, Nightmare Mode removes the majority of HUD elements. To notice an enemy, you will need to rely on your eyes and ears, instead of checking the UI markers. Additionally, we rebalanced some of the gameplay aids, such as Boosters, so that their use could become more tactical and involve a level of consideration on the player’s side. We took great care in making this mode as immersive and atmospheric as possible, so we borrowed the flickering flashlight from the first Dying Light. By the way, it’s another feature you asked for in Community Ideas that now lands in the game!
As I’ve mentioned already, we’ve built this new difficulty in Dying Light 2 Stay Human on the foundations of the first game – but there are updates and upgrades. The first noteworthy change is the stamina management system, which we called Tactical Stamina. It motivates the players to approach it more deliberately, as the repercussions of using it all up are more grave – it also gets restored more slowly. Additionally, we took a closer look at the chase mechanics and altered them considerably, so that every pursuit and escape can be even more terrifying and high-octane. So, you’ll notice the chases getting more intense pretty much right off the bat – and if you manage to evade the zombies for long enough, you’ll get to a new, 5th level, where Volatile Tyrants join in on the fun. Night roaming will get harder in general – for example, the inhibitors are going to grant less immunity.
Jan Rajtar-Kruczyński, our Game Designer, talks about the hardest difficulty co-op: “Nightmare Mode overhauls a lot of settings that work differently in other difficulties. For example, normally, playing in co-op makes the game easier, but here it is quite the opposite – the fights are scaled to be very challenging. The idea here is that through good cooperation and communication, you will be able to overcome even the toughest enemies. During development, I had the most fun playing Nightmare in co-op – ever since the game’s launch!”
There is much, much more! I’ve listed the biggest changes, but bear in mind that while working on implementing this mode, we applied loads of smaller modifications – I hope you notice and enjoy them all. Actually, to make sure we deliver on your expectations, we carried out two rounds of playtests with some of our community pals and influencers. As I always say, we’re open to your feedback, so please be sure to share your thoughts on the Nightmare Mode on our social media channels.
And I almost forgot about the most important thing! You might be asking yourself why play in Nightmare Mode if it’s such a… nightmare? I’m not going to lie, this feature is mostly aimed at our most dedicated and hardcore players who are out there, reaping the Legend Levels. Janek explains: “We’ve been noticing with each update that the players' characters grow, often outpacing even the newly added challenges. The goal of Nightmare Mode is to add a demanding yet fun layer to the game, addressing the needs of those who feel that they are too overpowered. In the end, we want Dying Light 2 Stay Human to allow players to be creative again.”
Additionally, all players who complete the game on this difficulty will be rewarded with a super unique outfit – can you guess whose? You’ll be pleased, I tell you!
One more thing – introducing Nightmare Mode to the game is another example of how we're making an effort to listen to the feedback that our players give us via the Community Ideas initiative. It’s the best way to get your voice heard. I’m pleased to let you know that we have just opened the next round of submissions – send us new ideas and vote for your choices on Pilgrim Outpost! And, as usual, let us know what you think on Reddit.
Enjoy Nightmare Mode and other features coming with the Nightmare Mode Update this week! Stay safe, Pilgrims!
Dev Blog #8
Hi, it’s Tymon here. Thank you for joining us for our 2nd Anniversary Celebrations. I’m really glad to see many of you enjoying the new features – firearms being the obvious highlight. We’re not done, though! We’re still working as hard as always to bring you loads of Dying Light 2 Stay Human goodness. There’s a lot of cool things coming and I hope you’ll be here with us, enjoying the journey.
I wouldn’t really be myself if I didn’t reiterate my thanks for the support you give us. It applies to all of the time and energy focused on Dying Light, but I’d like to give an extra special shout out to those who extended such a warm welcome to our Community Ideas initiative. We’re really making history here, and it’s only possible because of you.
For the uninitiated – Community Ideas is a special place, where you can submit your requested features and stuff you’d like to see added to our game. You can find it on our community hub, Pilgrim Outpost. We set up the beta version at the end of June, with the full version of the Community Ideas subpage launching in October.
As it is the case with every innovative idea, we had to learn some things the hard way, on the go. We’ve been perfecting and polishing this formula – and much of it thanks to you. On our side, Magda and Wojtek are among the people who take care of the Community Ideas behind the scenes. It’s definitely a collective effort, with many people across different departments contributing to make it all come together. Wojtek Michalak, our Publishing Digital Solutions Lead who conceived this idea, has his eye on the quality control. He says:
“Keyword search bar, extended categories filter, multiple language support, and entry translation powered by Google API are just some of the features we’ve implemented – on your request, but also because it made so much sense to do so. We will keep on upgrading, so finding cool ideas and voting for them is as convenient for you as possible.”
While we have been gradually adding functionalities to the submission page, you were also pretty busy. Since June, you’ve been sending us thousands upon thousands of ideas! Magda Marcinkowska, Techland’s Digital Producer that put this project into action, says:
“I’m not gonna lie, we were totally floored with the reception. Delighted as well, to be sure, because the enthusiasm was huge! The thing is, with such a large number of entries, some ideas were bound to be repeated. So, we checked the submissions in order to detect duplicates and weed out potential redundancies, which makes it easier for you to vote in the end.”
In total, we received almost 10 000 of your ideas! Now, remember that all of them needed to go through this cleanup process, and that’s a fair bit of work. We know some of you have been waiting for quite a long time to have your idea published or receive a notification about its status. I’m glad to report that as of now, all initially submitted ideas have been reviewed and the accepted ones are published on the site. We’re talking about 2.5k entries here! We’ll give those yet another pass, so that we can be sure the ideas that we keep are not only great, but also feasible to implement.
You can go on and browse the database to find the ideas you support, share them on your social media channels, and vote for them to be moved to the dev review stage. If you come up with something that hasn’t been published yet – good news! We’re reopening the submissions, so you can send it to us. Note that if you send us a duplicate of an existing idea, it won’t get accepted, so please check thoroughly before creating a new entry!
There are thousands of ideas, and it somehow turns out that the most popular ones, those you simply love voting for, are usually real heavy hitters! A lot of them take a huge amount of effort to be implemented, so I’d like to give a shout out to the Devs who work on them, on top of other things. Check out what’s already in the game and what’s currently in development on the dedicated Community Ideas page!
As I was saying, when your ideas get accepted, they end up in our development schedule. But there are times when we really like a concept, but realizing it would be a huge time and resource commitment on our part. As a consequence, it’s not always possible to introduce such submissions to our schedule right away, so we’ve created another tab, called Backlog. It’s a place for us to temporarily store concepts that we really like the sound of, but can’t commit to implementing at the moment. In the near future, I’d like to devote a couple of blogs to talk about some of your ideas in detail. We will share the ins and outs of their implementation, how we approach realization, how much time it takes and why so long, and so on. Maybe we’ll also talk about some of the rejected ones, to paint a fuller picture of why we won’t be doing them.
In my opinion, Community Ideas is a fantastic initiative – one we’ll be continuing, no doubt about that. It’s pretty unique on a global scale, meaning that not many – if any – of the developers in the entire industry have attempted something like this. Well, you know that we are very big on community-driven collaborative development, and Community Ideas is a perfect tool to bridge the gap and get to know your expectations.
New Alteration: Leggendary Eggsploder
Eggs are known to be fragile. But in Villedor, they can cause some serious damage! Throw these unique eggsplosive grenades at the horde, but make sure you’re at a safe distance as you’re as likely to crack as they are! And soar like a chicken through Legend Levels with increased multipliers!
The Leggendary Eggsploder Alteration will have the following effects: Lootable Eggsplosives—these unique explosives can be found in buses and cars and on Special Infected Glass cannon effect—more risky, but more rewarding: you deal more damage, but you also take more damage Additional effects—On harder difficulties, both damage dealt and damage taken will be increased. Additionally, stamina consumption is further increased and its regeneration is decreased Legend Level multipliers—x1.25, x2 and x4 for easy, normal and hard, respectively
The Leggendary Eggsploder Alteration will run until 12PM on April 1.
Your final call to become a part of the Kickstarter campaign
Runners, thanks to your support Dying Light the Board Game has surpassed the staggering threshold of 1 million euro!!! There is still a chance to join the hype and claim Kickstarter-exclusive content not available in retail during these final hours.
In response to numerous requests, shortly after the introduction of the popular Collector’s Pledge, you can now back the newest All-in Pledge. This option encompasses everything—literally everything—that was showcased during the campaign!
Funded in 30 minutes and already at 2045% of the funding goal, with 26+ unlocked Stretch Goals, and the Collector Pledge up for grabs, the Kickstarter campaign for Dying Light: The Board Game is nearing its end!
Spring is in the air and there’s something odd going on in Villedor this weekend! You can fight for longer, your weapons are more durable and you heal better. The zombie horde won’t know what’s hit them, so make the most of it!
The Spring Buffs Alteration will have the following effects:
• Increased stamina (30% less stamina consumed) • Increased health regen (once below 33% HP, you will heal to 65% HP) • Slower weapon durability loss
The Spring Buffs Alteration will run until 12PM on March 18.
It's Fortune God's Blessing Day!
Pilgrims,
We're in the middle of our Year of the Dragon celebrations, and today is the day you don't want to miss: Fortune God's Blessing day! And not only will you not want to miss it, but you'll want to make the most of it, too!
From 12PM CET today until 11:59AM CET tomorrow, you'll earn more Red Envelopes from every Encounter and each one will be full of even more loot! So, get out there and start saving some PKs and Survivors. No matter your loyalty, you'll be rewarded!
And in case you haven't experienced some of the other dragon's blessings yet... well, we won't spoil them, but give you a hint of what you can expect: Metal Dragon’s Blessing: Your melee weapons will be as tough as titanium, no matter what you hit or throw Wood Dragon’s Blessing: Just like a tree after it’s cut and trimmed, you heal up like nothing ever happened Water Dragon’s Blessing: No need to slow down at all when you’re in the heat of battle or escaping from danger Fire Dragon’s Blessing: When you feel that fire inside you, you leap higher and deal more damage Earth Dragon’s Blessing: Bring your enemies back down to earth and be more likely to finish them off
Below, you can find the rest of the Blessing Schedule: February 13: Fortune God Blessing February 14: Metal Dragon Blessing February 15: Wood Dragon Blessing February 16: Water Dragon Blessing February 17: Fire Dragon Blessing February 18: Earth Dragon Blessing
Year of the Dragon Bundle Available Now
Jump into Dying Light franchise with the latest bundle encompassing both installments.
The bundle contains:
Dying Light: Enhanced Edition The game whose uncompromising approach to gameplay set new standards for first-person zombie games. Dying Light: Enhanced Edition is all you need to start your adventure in the post-apocalyptic world ruled by zombies. Featuring an expansion with the buggy—your new ride, an additional game mode, two extra quarantine zones, and two bundles, it takes the gameplay experience to a brand new level.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human Get ready for an adventure filled with open world activities, the electrifying colors of the modern dark ages where your actions will affect the future of The City. Determine the balance of power with your choices amid the growing conflict and forge your own experience! Use 200+ weapons, 20+ weapon mods, and dozens of power moves to learn, practice, and master. Show no mercy, for it will not be shown to you.
Free Shu Warrior Bundle:
New outfit
Dragon Ji (polearm) blueprint
Leaping Tiger Dao (sword) blueprint
Gust of Wind (crossbow) blueprint
Metal Rat (buggy paint job)
Celebrate The Year of the Dragon with Us!
Pilgrims!
We're kicking off our month of celebrations for our 2nd anniversary right now! From now until February 19, each 24-hour period from 12PM CET will bring new blessings to Villedor. Log in each day to see just how the world has been altered! Plus, we've got some great rewards for you to earn!
During our celebrations, you'll be rewarded for saving Survivors and PKs in trouble throughout The City. For saving these citizens, you'll be gifted Red Envelopes which may contain anything from Old World Money to mutation samples.
Additionally, for completing each of the goals, you'll be rewarded with great and valuable items from the Dragon Warrior Bundle, so you’ll be able to earn the entire bundle for free before it even arrives in the Store later this month! So what do you need to do? Let’s take a look:
Participation Goal: Collect 1 Red Envelope Reward: 3 Red Envelopes
Warm-up Goal: Collect 25 Red Envelopes Reward: Sky Piercer Ji + Blueprint Weapon Description: Shock your foes with this weapon’s effect or deal more damage by throwing it at them .
Personal Goal: Collect 50 Red Envelopes Reward: Legendary Dragon Warrior Outfit
Community Goal: Collect 4,000,000 Red Envelopes Reward: Tigerwing Paraglider + Chi-Tu Charm Charm Description: Affix this to your weapon and take advantage of the decreased stamina usage when fighting.
Additionally, you’ll be able to claim the Azure-edged Dragon Mask through Pilgrim Outpost for free during our Year of the Dragon celebrations, so don't miss out!
And finally, even though we're getting ready to see out winter, you may notice that Villedor's been hit by one last cold snap. Enjoy the snowy conditions while you can, Pilgrims!
Dev Blog #5
Hello everybody! Let’s give Tymon a break this time – I’m Rafał Polito, Techland’s Technology Producer. I’m mainly involved in creating and maintaining tools used by our developers. One of my current focuses is also on user-generated content (UGC). My goal is making sure that content creation is as easily accessible as possible, not only for developers but also for gamers.
We’re very lucky to have a community that’s really creative, and this ingenuity naturally lends itself to building maps. But usually it’s more or less a niche interest, available only to those who dig deep into dev functionalities – both for the game creators and those who like to play them. This is why I’ve spent hundreds of hours buried in developer tools to make them more approachable for our players. On top of that, we partnered with mod.io, which was a huge step in terms of opening UGC up to a wider audience. Now, you can access the maps by just pressing a button in the main menu, on PC and consoles alike.
But that’s playing, what about the creating part of the equation? Our (and mine, personally) never-ending love for UGC and teaching other people resulted in the first ever Community Workshops related to our Community Maps project! We invited top creators from all over the world to our headquarters in Wrocław to pass on our knowledge, discuss, brainstorm, and learn about their expectations regarding the future of Developer Tools and UGC.
We are always #CommunityFirst, which we work hard to show in our daily actions and relationships we aim to build. Social media exchanges and meet-ups are great, but I’d like to take it a step further and interact with the members of our community in a tangible and productive way. This is why the goal of the workshops was to equip our guests with the literal and metaphorical tools for them to grow as creators – show them a way that could lead to becoming developers. We know some of them see a future in gamedev, so it’s really fantastic to be able to watch their work, how passionate and meticulous they are.
Me with our 9 happy workshoppers: The workshop crew, in alphabetical order: bub, Crex, Hank_Hill, HENeral, Liliannismo33, SrgRespawn, TheAhmetIbrahim, X_0, XAndUkarE + me
So, what exactly went into these workshops? For two full days, the top map creators had an opportunity to meet and talk to the developers in our office, particularly to Techland’s Developer Tools team.
Our devs were all praise: “I was surprised and excited to see that our guests had unique backgrounds and skills, suited to working in different areas and with diverse features. They gave the impression of one, united team that had been creating games of their own for years. Sometimes, I felt that they knew more about our tools than I do, or our developers! I also had a feeling that we’d known each other forever, even if our previous communication was only online.”
During the first part of the workshops, we focused on theory: what goes into designing a good map, and what aspects are extremely important to make it successful. For example, it turns out you don’t have to create a painstakingly perfect 20-hour-long scenario for people to want to play it. Sometimes, all it takes is a cool idea for 5 minutes of fun – if it’s executed well. We also had a discussion about the specific projects created by our community members and studied each case separately. Additionally, we discussed a few tips and tricks on how to save time and maximize results. Engrossed in map creation:
The second part was all about practice – our guests had to pick a random idea and inspiration, lottery style. Here are some examples: Pitch black: make a map where the infection progress is the primary threat; Gravity: make a map where a different gravity setting is the main gimmick; Picturesque: make a map where visual beauty is the main focus.
Then, we moved on to the game jam stage, when they got to create new maps. What followed was a conversation about individual progress and an idea sharing session. Towards the end of the day, we entered into brainstorming mode. We talked about Developer Tools, the future of this feature, and how to improve tools for the community. We showed some sneak peeks of upcoming updates, like mod support or new features in DevTools to support mod creation. We even showed our legendary City Builder, most requested by the community – but, in my opinion, it’s too complex and too big even for our developers to handle and so will remain our secret tool.
Just look what beauties our dev tools can help create*: * Photo contains a screengrab of a map made by one of the creators that is work in progress and does not occur in game – image not representative of final quality.
Let’s take a look at what one of our guests had to say about the entire experience: “The crew was awesome, very fun, charismatic, and positive people around. The plan for workshops was great, we had time to explore, time to chat, time to work and focus, then relax by the end of the day. The integration with other community map creators itself was something I think we all needed. There wasn't a moment where I felt lost.”
We strongly believe that community is the most important aspect of Dying Light. Meeting up with our map creators was a joy, an honor, and an inspiration all at the same time. Personally, I think that initiatives like the Community Workshops are the best thing that can come out of this symbiotic relationship between Techland and the folks that like our games enough to dedicate hours of their time to poke around the technical aspects. A lot of respect goes out to them and I hope we’ll be able to have a repeat experience next year. Let us know what you think about it on our reddit channel. To find more information on Community Maps, visit the dedicated area of Pilgrim Outpost. Who knows, maybe you’ll get inspired to create one as well!
Take care!
Grab "Hakon Bundle" for free and arm yourself with charm and wit!
Grab ""Hakon Bundle"" for free & become the fierce nightrunner hellbent on survival. Arm yourself with charm, wit, and the tools necessary to navigate through the treacherous nights of The City.
Channel Hakon’s signature style (and charm) then pop some Infected heads with his trademark bow. And if you wanna be a real hot shot, add a fire bolt; that way things will really start heating up. But don’t worry if you can’t handle the heat (or you run into an old flame), Hakon’s paraglider will make sure you can make a quick getaway!
This bundle contains:
Hakon’s Appearance — do whatever you need to survive, and look good while doing it.
Hakon's Crossbow — aim steady, and let them take an arrow to the knee... or the head.
Regular Bolts & Fire Bolts + Blueprints — become a proper firestarter with these special bolts. Just don’t forget to reload.
Hakon’s Paraglider — this paraglider may help you flee from a horde of Infected or… a romantic exploit gone bad.
