On 8th January the official Twitter account for the Dying Light franchise revealed that players would need at “least 500 hours” to fully complete Dying Light 2.
This has caused a bit of a minor controversy on Twitter and the rest of the internet as many found this number to be far too high and unappealing. This also kicked off secondary discussions about shorter experiences in games, the price of games compared to their length and other such issues.
Now developer and publisher Techland has not walked this statement back, but has provided some context for that information.
“We wanted to clarify our recent communication about the amount of hours required to complete the game. Dying Light 2: Stay Human is designed for players with different gameplay styles and preferences to explore the world how they see fit,” Techland writes.
To that end only 20 hours is apparently needed to complete the main story of the game and 80 hours would be required for the main story plus completion of every available side quest.
As for the 500 hours, that is the, “Time needed to max out the game with all main and side quests, choices and endings, checking every place on the map, every dialogue and finding every collectible.”
The wording there isn’t the best, but it seems to mean that 500 hours would mean several playthroughs of the game to test out every permutation of decisions offered to the player.
While this context is welcome it’s a problem that Techland really created for themselves, probably thinking that a big number would help sell the game better.
We’re also not convinced by the company intending for players to go through the game multiple times for slight variations. In the age of watching anything you want instantly online, won’t most people just look up alternate choices and different endings on YouTube?
Sure some diehards will want to play through absolutely everything themselves, but they’re surely the minority.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is scheduled for release on 4th February for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
