Dying Light 2 gets huge free update overhauling nighttime experience

Techland's been listening to fans and improving Dying Light 2

Dying Light 2 Stay Human launched last year to little fanfare, with the game falling under the radar for many but still managing to sell 5 million copies in its first month on sale. Never one to rest on its laurels though, Techland has released a massive new update for the zombie game, completely overhauling the nighttime experience.

Dying Light 2’s new update is appropriately called Good Night Good Luck, and as the name suggests, its primary purpose is to make the night even more terrifying for players. Techland says it’s made big changes to both the visual and the gameplay aspects of the night, and it sounds absolutely terrifying.

There's a new color grading the company is calling “Darker Nights”, which makes it much more difficult to see during the night, especially for things far off in the distance. That might sound like a step back – usually seeing more is a good thing – but nights didn’t feel particularly different from days when Dying Light 2 released, so any attempt to make it spookier is a good thing.

The music also pulls back considerably at night, taking a backseat to sound effects, making it even more tense and terrifying, and infected show up in even more locations than before. Volatiles in particular will start roaming the rooftops at night too, so you can’t just parkour up the side of a building to get away.

Speaking of parkour, one of the biggest complaints from players when Dying Light 2 launched was that the parkour felt too clean, too directed. Techland has taken that feedback to heart, and made an optional new style of parkour for experienced players. The developer says that the new style will allow players to exercise more control over their movements, similar to Dying Light 1’s parkour system.

The final major addition in the update is PC-only for the moment, but Techland says it’ll be coming to consoles later this year. It’s the addition of community maps, which are maps created by modders. Many of these maps were available previously, but Techland has teamed up with mod.io to make them available in-game — without needing to download or install any external apps or editors.

There are a bunch of smaller additions, far too many to include here, but you can check out the full patch notes on the official blog if you want to know more. To celebrate the update, Dying Light 2 is also 50% off on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam — right in time for the big Summer Sale on Steam.