The developers of Dying Light 2 spoil toxic gamers

As promised, Polish developer Techland released today a video updating the world on the state of the zombie parkour thriller Dying light 2It’s actually an extremely succinct look at one of the most toxic cycles underlying the video game industry.

In the first half of the approximately three minute video, several Techland developers read with expletive comments from fans demanding the game’s release or at least proof that it still exists. “FUCK THIS BULLSHIT !!! Let go of dying light 2 or give a goddamn demo GOD DAMNIT, ”reads one of the messages.

Then the second half of the video starts with one of the developers saying calmly and earnestly, “Okay everyone, we got the message. We understand that you are curious about the game because you want to Dying light 2 to be as good as you imagined. “

The developers then explain that Dying light 2 is a big game, a complex game, the kind of game that is difficult to make (note: they all are), and that the studio just needs a little longer to bring its ambitious creative vision to life, especially after years full of unique challenges and tragedies from the ongoing pandemic. The second half of the video is defensive, bordering on apologetic, seemingly trying to calm down the most energetic and also virulent fans of the upcoming game.

“All of us here are committed to making a game that you will play for months to come,” says a developer as if filming a hostage video.

“We are proud to have such devoted fans as you, no matter how you express your feelings,” said Tymon Smektała, the game’s lead designer, towards the end, completing the sick loop of dependence on video game marketing.

“Normalizing this nonsense or playing for fun is making the industry worse for everyone,” he wrote GamesIndustry.biz editor Brendan Sinclair today on TwitterHe’s right.

We’ve seen this game dozens of times before. A certain segment of game fans likes a developer until they bombard him with death threats because a game has slowed down or, god forbid, had a wrong ending. Still, some of the biggest studios and game publishers continue to target these hyper-online, super-fickle ‘fans’ as they are also the ones who will spread the E3 marketing gospel on social media and private chat, berating the nonbelievers, and be ready to launch an instant harassment campaign if review scores don’t go as expected.

Dying light 2 was first revealed at Microsoft’s press conference at E3 2018, three years after the release of the first game. It looked neat. A hands-off demo I saw even teased that it could have an interesting world structure beyond the standard zombie survival hijinks. But the game never got a set release date, and Techland announced early last year it would be postponed indefinitelySo what Dying light 2 fans have apparently started hurling abuse at the game’s developers, and now Techland is trying to win them back, including with a short new teaser to persuade them until the studio is finally ready to announce more.

We saw this exact scenario play with last year Cyberpunk 2077After the game was postponed for a third time in late October, senior game designer Andrzej Zawadzki and others reported being harassed by the news. “I’ll burn you alive if you don’t release the game,” read one of the death threats he shared in a screenshotThis was a few weeks later Bloomberg first reported that the developers of CD Projekt Red were forced to work mandatory overtime to finish the game, and several weeks earlier Cyberpunk 2077 fans would go nuts about insufficiently positive reviews of the final game. The game quickly sold 13 million copies and was pulled from PlayStation Store just as quickly for performance issues. Despite years of marketing edgelord, it has plummeted from NPD’s sales chartsWho exactly was served by this whole screwed up cycle?

And yet we see it again with Dying light 2Months after it was postponed, Polish outlet PolskiGameDev.pl reported that development was not going well, and that the studio struggled to deliver on its promise of a dynamic and changing world. Last month, The gamer reported that the project suffered from a lack of direction, and cited a number of incidents in the studio that pointed to a pattern of toxic management at Techland. Just last week, tweeted the studio, “We announced the game too early, but it is far from hell for the developers.” Techland’s leadership sold a dream for what Dying light 2 maybe years ago for fans and now it’s a nightmare feeding bastards and possibly deeper problems in the studio.

In the end, the game will come out (the new video says 2021) or not. It can be good, or bad, or just good. Whatever the outcome, hopefully the very visible, obvious problems out there Cyberpunk 2077 Dying light 2, and games with similarly weaponized fanbases will convince creators to stop relying on the circus’s years of hype to promote their games. Or at least stop giving in to the worst parts of this strategy’s fanbase tends to create.