Dying Light 2, June 2026: What now?

I went to bed ridiculously early on February 3rd in 2022. Not because I was tired or anything, but I knew I wasn’t about get much sleep in the near future. And I had to be up early. Very early. 1 AM kinda early, because that was when the PLAY button on Dying Light 2 was going to turn green. I kind of like, Dying Light, you see. Just a little, though. A respectable amount that started in 2015. A normal amount. And if the sarcasm isn’t landing, or if you’re new here and we’ve only now met: Dying Light: Latchkey Hero – The Story So Far Thank you, Techland. Thank you, Dying Light Of media representation, middle age, and, you guessed it, Dying Light of all things Sure, Dying Light 2 wasn’t about to have Kyle in it (I’m a Crane girlie, heart to soul), but you do not get up at 1 AM for a game if you’re only mildly invested. You get up because you are mildly unhinged instead, and unhinged I remained, especially once the game’s prologue made my heart skip a beat. See, you start with Aiden sprinting through a tunnel. Going real fast. Then, at the end there, Jonah Scott makes himself sound so much like RCS as he shouts how he isn’t as young as he used to be, that for a second I thought WOW DID TECHLAND FOOL US ALL AND KYLE IS ACTUALLY HERE?! Or he shouts something like that, anyway? Hold on a second, let me start up a new campaign and check. Won’t take long. Making kissy faces at Kyle in the background. Oh. I can’t. I can’t go check. Because it’s gone. The tunnel. Meeting Spike. The End of the World Party. The Easter Eggs. It’s all gone. Techland patched the lot out in June 2026, which isn’t at all the first time they’ve removed story content from the game. There’s a lot they’ve taken out over the years, and with each time that they did, some small part of me wept inside. Because, sure, I had my gripes with the game’s story! But my griping was out of deep affection, because guess what: Things I Love about Dying Light 2: Stay Human. I kept coming back to the game and each time I thoroughly enjoyed the first section of it, thinking the story was at its strongest there. Now, I am not about to list everything that was changed over the years. Nor am I going to launch into another rant about how removing the player’s connection to Spike (who they chose as the anchor between all games) is a baffling decision. This isn’t why I am writing this and there are folks out there a lot more diligent than me on keeping tabs on the changes. No, I’m writing this because I am trying to make sense of what are now genuinely conflicted emotions about a franchise I had hope for. Especially after the release of the Volakyle Adventures. Shout Bias! if you want, that’s fair, but I do still stand by my original assessment: Dying Light: The Beast; Demo Impressions. And oh boy do I have critique for Dying Light: The Beast too, especially the story direction, but at least with DLTB every update since its release felt like a step towards something better. From adding Nightmare mode all the way down to Restored Land (which I still think is the ultimate way to play a Dying Light game at this point, but I digress), it all fit. It got me so invested in the franchise again, I’d started outlining my first ever full fledged game review (Am I late to the party? Yes, always.) where I wanted to focus specifically on the Restored Land update. Plus, I’ve booked tickets and travel and lodging for Gamescom this year, all because I wanted to see Techland’s Art Gallery exhibit. Do I, still? Look, I haven’t even rushed to buy the new bundle for DL2 which has got Kyle in it. You need to understand how unusual that is for me. How troubling. How it makes me wonder what will happen whenever their next game is announced, a game which will very likely have Kyle in it and which should be an instantaneous buy for me. Like, I had hope, you know? I saw the direction they were headed with every DLTB update and I thought Hey, this is promising, because surely they will afford the same care to DL2 from here on out, yeah? Surely? Nah. Instead, I get to never again go back to the game I bought with my very own Swedish Kronorlings (not once, but twice, because I needed the physical Collector’s Edition and also wanted to play on Steam the second it came out). That game simply does not exist anymore. Including, but not limited to, the very moment it made my heart skip a beat. And when they readily do this to a game that’s four years old, then what faith am I to have they won’t do it every game that follows. Cheers, Spike.