Dying Light 2 developer Techland addressed some common questions about the sequel in a new Q&A video, with some standout responses touching on connections to the first game and the relationships between characters.
Asked about the canonical ending to The Following, a large expansion that wrapped up the story of the original game, lead game designer Tymon Smektała wouldn't commit to a definitive answer, but did assure players that "the events in Dying Light 2 and the events that lead up to Dying Light 2 are very strongly connected with what happened in the first game."
"The story of Dying Light 2 takes place several years after the story of Dying Light 1," associate producer Julia Szynkaruk added. "[Main character] Kyle Crane was such an important person in all the events that happened in Dying Light 1, so he must have left at least an impact on what will happen in Dying Light 2."
Techland touched on the role of characters from the first game in another question, with Smektała confirming that we won't see any of the same characters in Dying Light 2 simply because it takes place in a different area and is set "quite a number of years" in the future. However, quests and characters within the sequel will reference characters and events from the first game, which suggests that while new players will be able to jump right in, fans of the original will pick up on nuances here and there.
Speaking of characters: we've heard quite a lot about the Peacekeepers, Survivors, Renegades, and other factions in Dying Light 2's world, and Techland's repeatedly talked up more in-depth relationships built on player choice. Presumably with this in mind, one viewer asked if Dying Light 2 will offer romantic relationships in addition to business and professional ones. Smektała explained that "we don't have a romance option like in BioWare's games, for example, because this was never our goal," but affirmed that the sequel does stress interactions between characters – so much so that siding with one of the main factions becomes mandatory later in the story, if only because "if you have no allies, you die very quickly."
Elsewhere in the Q&A video, Smektała and Szynkaruk discussed the new open-world events added in Dying Light 2, like zombie-infested quarantine sites and aptly named Dark Places, as well as the ongoing role of the Global Relief Effort, the ostensibly humanitarian organization pulling strings behind the scenes of the original Dying Light. There's also an interesting note about building your own vision of the apocalyptic future, with Techland purposely deviating from the idea of restoring the world as we know and leaning hard into the "Modern Dark Ages" and building a new future on top of that era.
After a year of silence, Techland is ready to talk about Dying Light 2 again.
