Dying Light 2, is easily one of the most-anticipated releases of 2020. Techland's open world zombie sequel sounds like a truly ambitious beast - one that will constantly present the player with agonising choices and unexpected consequences. Consequences that can have literally world-altering effects.
If that all sounds a little bit stressful, that's because it's supposed to be. Pretty much everything you do in Dying Light 2 will have some kind of effect on the world around you.
Whether it's a companion dying, or an entirely new area of the map opening up, the impact of your action (or inaction) is felt throughout. You'll have to constantly consider how you want to proceed based on what you want the outcome to be... all while bearing in mind that the outcome could end up completely the opposite of what you wanted or expected. Exhausting.
The good news is that Dying Light 2 will offer players the opportunity to "fix" their mistakes and effectively walk back some of the bigger decisions, if you don't like the outcome. The bad news is that doing this won't be easy. Speaking to Official Xbox Magazine, Dying Light 2's Lead Designer Tymon Smektala spoke about the player's ability to change the (in-game) world, and what they can do to take a step back at certain points in the adventure.
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"I think the biggest thing will be the ability to change the world around you," he explained. "The moment when you make a decision or you perform some action in the game and you see that the world has changed, you see what kind of power we give you from the actions to the decisions you make."
"So sometimes in crucial moments for the narrative where we feel there's a space for you to think back and realise that maybe what you decided to do wasn't the thing you really wanted to do, even if that's not a 'good' thing... there are a couple of instances where we give you a chance to rewrite those decisions."
To be clear, Smektala stresses that you'll only be able to go back on certain choices in very "rare instances". The biggest, world-altering moments. For most of the game, decisions are permanent. Even the few that you can change, it's not a case of refreshing the game or literally rewriting history to make it all exactly like it was before.
"It's not like you can like go back to the moment of that decision and just change it," Smektala said. "You need to do some additional stuff, like complete a couple of extra missions, to fix the things that you think you wronged. But apart from those rare instances, all of the decisions are permanent."
Basically, it sounds like once you've made a massive choice, the consequences of said choice will occur and there's nothing you can do about it. That's as it should be in a game that's made such a big deal about having branching paths and world-altering events, of course.
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Still, knowing that you can, with work, at least partly restore the world to how it was before you screwed takes some of the pressure of. Even if we'll still have to live with most of the mistakes we inevitably make.
Featured Image Credit: TechlandTopics: Dying Light 2, Techland