During last week’s developer Q and A session, Techland revealed a big core concept in Dying Light 2. While it’s also true in Dying Light, I think that it’s being expanded upon in the sequel. The idea here is that day is for the humans, but the infected own the night. This is because the infected are more volatile at night, and they’re afraid of UV light, which is obviously emitted by the sun. This makes for an interesting routine that characters in the world have to stick to, one that I don’t think everyone was used to in the first game.
Humans live in buildings, but they’re using the rooftops to create their own civilization, away from the ground where the infected still roam. Infected will be out in the day, but they won’t be as volatile as they are at night. In fact, they’ll retreat into a building if they’re drawn out by loud noises or a potential meal. Once the night comes though, it sounds like even the rooftops won’t be safe. The infected can and will get everywhere, and that includes all the places where humans have been hanging out.
This creates a weird sort of coexistence between the infected and the survivors. There’s a constant threat out there, but as long as you stick to the day and go in at night, you’re likely to avoid that threat entirely. Unless of course, you feel like going inside some of the buildings those guys are hanging out in. I like the idea that nowhere is safe at night. If you’re choosing to go out, you’re choosing to potentially get in trouble. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but you’ll definitely have an easier time if you sleep at night and only go out in the day.
With that said, I want to go out at night. I want to see how the world looks with infected all over the place. This is something that we almost saw in Dying Light, but the sequel’s world has moved on a lot since then. There are more infected, but civilization is also back on the road to recovery. This is a symbiotic existence born out of necessity because you physically can’t kill every infected, you just have to cope. And I love it.