Dying Light 2’s Story Could Stand to Be a Little Less Like Fallout

Techland released new details about Dying Light 2’s story this year, after years of little-to-no information about the game. Now we have some idea of what happened to the world after the adventures in Harran in the first game, and what kind of character we’re going to play as. We’re also apparently going to have to partake in faction politics in order to get ahead in the game.

According to Techland, the game follows Aiden Caldwell, a freerunner who does odd jobs for people in The City, one of the last human cities in the world. The world has been decimated by the virus that we last fought in Harran, and humanity has slowly died out in the twenty years that have passed. Aiden is returning to The City for reasons related to his shady, mysterious past, and will have a hand in determining the fate of The City. He’ll either ally or make an enemy out of the various factions that are vying for control of The City, including the Survivors, the Peacekeepers, and the Renegades.

So… a post-apocalyptic world where most of human civilization is gathered into scrappy cities, and the player character must choose which faction to support despite the choices seeming pretty wretched at first glance? Sounds an awful lot like a Fallout game to me. It’s probably not a surprise since, at least until he was fired from the game, Fallout: New Vegas writer Chris Avellone was a major figure in the game’s development.

There’s nothing wrong with being similar to Fallout — it’s a great series that a lot of people have enjoyed playing. But nothing about the original Dying Light seemed to be crying out for that kind of story shift. It feels a little too simplistic, a little too much like a game we’ve all already played before. It also feels like City politics can’t be all that complicated if they can be influenced by one freelancer.