Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Dying Light 2's Latest Patch Includes New Game Plus, Which 'Will Significantly Alter' Gameplay

Dying Light 2's latest patch, 1.03 includes dozens of changes – including a New Game Plus mode that developer Techland said will "significantly alter" gameplay.

Upon completing Dying Light 2's story (though not all 500+ hours of content) players can restart the game and experience it again with extra changes. Though Techland remained somewhat vague in its notes, the second playthrough will acknowledge that it's not the player's first time by modifying certain content and adding new and exclusive things to do.

The new content, completely unavailable in the first playthrough of Dying Light 2, includes: 30 new inhibitors, new platinum objectives for parkour challenges, updated distribution of the enemies (for example Volatiles and Banshee will now spawn during the night), a new legendary weapon tier, gold encounters, and enemy difficulty that will scale with player level.

Across all save files, Techland has also fixed a number of bugged quests and added a new one called Something Big Has Been Here, which introduces a new variant of mutated infected.

The developer is surprisingly frank about other changes, saying plainly that "enemies with bows are less annoying" now. The bug causing some enemies to become invulnerable to damage has been fixed alongside similar issues, and the patch also updates achievement registration so that everything pops as it should.

A significant number of changes to Dying Light 2's co-op mode have also been made, primarily quality-of-life improvements and solutions for connection issues that will hopefully help ease problems players have had while playing with others since launch.

Techland said that overall stability has been improved, progression-blocking glitches such as certain NPCs not appearing have been fixed, and issues like the game not acknowledging and thus spawning enemies around the joining player have also been addressed. The rest of the patch notes (available below) cover similar issues such as crash fixes and improved texture optimization.

Techland announced the update earlier this month and promised it was one of the biggest patches so far. Being the biggest patch would certainly be impressive given the day one update included more than 1,000 fixes, addressing some of the problems highlighted in IGN's 7/10 review: "Dying Light 2 is an ambitious zombie action adventure that's packed with top-notch parkour, an awesome open world, and every painful bug in the book."

Despite early issues, the game still proved incredibly popular by shambling its way onto Steam's 25 most-played games list and selling more than five million copies in its first month.

Dying Light 2 Full April Patch Notes:

New Game+

  • After finishing it once, the game can be replayed again, only this time with modified game parameters in place to encourage a second playthrough by the implementation of a unique system and experience. The player can now go through the story with revitalized mechanisms. These include new enemy behaviors, more difficult encounters, new objects within the world, namely the newly added inhibitors, and many more changes that will significantly alter the gameplay style and allow the player to develop their character further. All of this is only available in New Game+!
    • 30 new inhibitors
    • New platinum objectives for parkour challenges
    • Updated distribution of the enemies (f.e. Volatiles and Banshee spawn during the night, a wider variety of enemy pools in encounters)
    • A new legendary weapon tier added
    • Gold encounters added
    • Enemy difficulty scales with the player level

Co-op Updates

  • Fixed connection and stability issues in co-op
    • Fixed connection issues with the players who are further advanced inthe story
    • Improved game performance in co-op
  • Co-op story blocks
    • Fixed an issue that caused blocked progression in a single player game mode after a co-op session
    • Fixed few remaining death loops in co-op
    • Fixed an issue with a missing NPC during the Missing People quest in a co-op session
  • Co-op quality
    • Improved weapon visualization in online menu and inventory
    • Improved handling of challenges requirements in co-op
    • Fixed random bandit respawns while players are still in the bandit camp
    • Fixed issues with the player being unable to access inventory or map after dying several times in co-op
    • Fixed blocked story progression with "enemies nearby" notification
    • Fixed rare issue when a player can't move after a revive
    • Fixes for far away peer respawn from the host and respawning in geometry
    • Fixed AI jitter in random cases
    • Improved various animations in co-op - f.e. crouching, throwing, using the bow, and more
    • Fixed sound duplication in co-op
    • Fixed rare cases of unresponsive quest radio dialog in co-op, causing story blocks
    • Fixed the display of incorrect icons on the map after a co-op party
    • Fixed “call for help” when the player is being summoned during a gather in co-op
    • Fixed black screens in certain situations that could cause progression blockers during co-op progression
    • Fixed unnecessary “skill requirement” text-glitch in the description of a challenge in a co-op session
    • Updated the time of tutorial windows to 30 seconds during the co-op sessions
    • Fixed a bug that allows player to have multiple story quests active

Content Update

  • Mutated Infected - New quest added Something Big Has Been Here, which included special elemental Goon variants

Gameplay Updates

  • Enemies with bows are less annoying — decreased damage output
  • Completed achievements are correctly awarded upon completion. This works for the achievements that were obtained before the update as well
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Howlers and Screamers to become invulnerable to damage
  • Fixed a possibility to fast travel between map regions after completing various quests
  • Fixed a random AI bug of Human encounters
  • Fixed infected invulnerability to arrows
  • Fixed missing rewards after Bandit encounters
  • Fixed the Virals patrol movement in GRE facilities

Quest Updates

  • Fixed a bug related to wall-clipping during the Let’s Waltz quest
  • Fixed a bug of the player getting stuck after using an inhibitor, or opening inventory after obtaining inhibitor in the Markers of Plague quest
  • Fixed the map display bug in The Only Way Out quest
  • Fixed the disappearance of Hakon in the Into The Darkness quest after playing in co-op
  • Fixed Sophie’s inaccessible position in The Raid quest

UI/UX Updates

  • Added FOV slider on PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X
  • Improved UI textures optimization
  • Fixed issues related to switching between keyboard and controller
  • Fixed inhibitor pop-up message in Markers of Plague quest
  • Fixed quest display in journal
  • Fixed tutorial window display
  • Fixed weapon durability display, quest tracking, and inventory management on ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo second display
  • Aiden should no longer T-pose in the main menu
  • Fixed crashes related to launching the game in 5760x1080 resolution
  • Fixed display of incorrect numbers on Immunity Bar
  • Minor changes to PC key bindings

Technical Updates

  • Improved game stability
  • Several crash sources fixed
  • Improved the stability of frame rate in various places on the map
  • Fixed multiple bugs that allowed players to see and fall outside map texture
  • Fixed occasional texture glitches in various places on the map
  • Fixed various audio glitches
  • …and numerous additional bug fixes and quality improvements.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

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