How Dying Light 2's day/night system completely transforms the city

At the PC Gaming Show we learned a little about the world of Dying Light 2, which is set for release on December 7. One of the most interesting things about the city is how it completely transforms at night, and I sat down with a developer from Techland to tell me more about that.

"The night is the common enemy for everyone in Dying Light 2," says creative director Adrian Ciszewski. "During the day, everyone has their own agenda. You might hate one of the factions. But when night falls, everyone has one enemy: the Infected."

"When the night comes, the world changes completely. Humans rule the city during the day, but the streets are overrun with Infected at night. The floor is lava, basically. You should stay on the rooftops. If you jump to ground level, it's gonna be painful. You'll be pursued and encounter Screamers."

Screamers, if you haven't had the pleasure, are a creepy child-like form of the Infected, returning from the original game. Their screams disorient you and alert other enemies to your location. You can imagine how terrifying being spotted by one of these will be at night when the streets are crawling with Infected and you're at your most vulnerable.

"Night also brings interesting gameplay opportunities," says Ciszewski. "If you travel the world during the day, you're gonna see a lot of Infected in buildings—almost like I Am Legend—who are asleep. They're waiting for night to go hunting. So when they go out at night, they leave those interiors almost empty. And that's an opportunity for you to visit these places."

"The metro system is usually very populated with Infected during the day, but at night you can go there and explore more easily. You might find military containers down there. So the day/night system isn't just a gimmick, it's a part of the world. If a quest involves you going through an underground tunnel, waiting for night will make your life much easier." 

"Exploring at night is made even more complicated by the fact that you have this biomarker measuring your level of infection," he says. "Everyone in this world is infected. The more time you spend in darkness, the more the infection bar rises up. So you're not only managing time, but your infection level. But you can give yourself more time with food items or injections."

In a gameplay trailer released in May (see above) we get a brief glimpse of how things will play out at night. We see the dev playing the demo creeping through a dark subway tunnel, dodging the handful of zombies still lurking down there. You'll have to use stealth here to avoid being seen. Then they find a crate stuffed with high quality loot, which is your reward for braving the city's lower levels after hours. It looks incredibly tense.