Dying Light 2 announced and Chris Avellone is designing the story

Dying Light 2 was just announced during Microsoft's E3 2018 press conference, and, surprisingly, Chris Avellone is working with developer Techland to design the narrative. Best known for his work in RPGs like Fallout, Avellone's involvement signals a significant evolution for the series, with decisions you make in the story having a significant impact on the surrounding city and its residents.

Set 15 years after the initial zombie outbreak, Dying Light 2's post-apocalyptic setting is borderline fantastical, a big departure from the vaguely Middle-Eastern setting of the first game. You'll still parkour around the city in first person, fighting humans and zombies alike with all manner of hand-crafted weaponry.

As Avellone explained during the presentation, however, Dying Light 2's world will change radically depending on decisions you make. In one example, the player is tasked with tracking down some water smugglers by a faction known as the Peacekeepers. If they choose to kill the smugglers, the Peackeepers will use this valuable resource to help repopulate a district of the city, helping establish a more ordered presence for the survivors there. If the player instead helps the smugglers, they'll sell the water on the black market and the district will fall victim to bandits and other seedy types. Both choices were accompanied with a visible change in the look of the city.

Not much more is known at this point, but Avellone confirmed that, like the first game, darkness will bring much more terrifying and powerful zombies. How this will all feed into the new, branching narrative is unclear.

We'll be checking out Dying Light 2 at E3, so check back later in the week for our preview. Here's a more detailed look at the gameplay.

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With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.