Dying Light 2: Stay Human has just rolled out a brand-new patch, adding a number of player-requested features and fixing many of the game's worst bugs--including lingering issues with "deathloops." The patch is live now for PC, and will be coming to console soon, according to developer Techland.
The patch includes a number of quality-of-life improvements, including better ragdoll physics, performance upgrades for older PCs, and what Techland describes as "more immersive details in melee combat." Digging into the patch notes for update 1.2, these details include tweaks that take into account the weight of blunt melee weapons being used, a buff for the Biter, and changes to sharp weapons that allow more gory slicing, dicing, and general bloodshed.
In terms of fixes, the patch has cleaned up the remaining known instances of what have been referred to as "deathloops," where players find themselves dying over and over in certain circumstances. The patch also adds a number of fixes to story quests where progression could potentially be blocked.
Some work has also gone into stability issues with Dying Light 2, with fixes for known crashes and black screen scenarios. The full patch notes, included below, have a number of big fixes and tweaks designed to give players a better experience in Dying Light 2's open world.
Fixed blocks in multiple quests – Into The Dark, Assassination, Sophie in The Raid Quest, Hubert in The Only Way Out, Veronika, Nightrunners, The Lost Light, Double Time.
Solved problems with safe zones (in-game clock stops, can’t sleep).
Co-op Fixes
Stability issues fixed: crashes or black screens in certain situations
Numerous story progress blocks fixed
Fixed issues with accepting invites
Challenges issues fixed: no weapon when inventory full, difficulty balance improved, tools requirements properly handled
Fixed co-op parties spawning in distant places
Improved/fixed replication of city open world activities: windmills, hanging cages, loot chests, NPC rescue issues
Fixed enemies and players falling through the ground in certain situations
Several performance drops fixed
Nightrunner Tools Fixes
Paraglider and Grappling Hook upgrades can be applied correctly for players that obtained them during cooperative sessions.
PK Crossbow reward is correctly given to players in cooperative mode. This fix will prevent new cases from appearing.
Important Combat Improvements
Improved Biter behavior during the day. The enemy latches onto the players more frequently which diversifies enemy encounters.
Performance of blunt weapons improved to reflect the sense of weight.
Improved enemy reaction depending on the type of weapon – to better reflect the weight of the weapon.
Human opponents can now block players’ attacks during light hit reaction time.
Light hit reactions for human enemies have been shortened.
New Ragdoll Behaviors
Opponents enter ragdolls more often.
Ragdoll works more naturally.
Ragdoll behaves differently depending on the used weapon type.
Appropriate forces are applied when falling from a height and when hitting different parts of the body while maintaining the force given from the direction of the blow.
When a ragdoll collides with its surroundings – the appropriate sound and FXs are played depending on the surface the body falls on.
Improved spikes detection. The enemy is now always stamped on the spikes after a hit. Additionally spikes audio feedback is now improved and new FXs were added (displayed based on the body’s physical momentum).
Night Improvements and Balance
Howler’s senses range increased.
Increased the Howler resistance to range weapons.
The chase is triggered when a Howler is hit by a ranged weapon and is still alive.
Volatiles come out of hiding spots faster during the chase.
Level 4 of the chase is now more difficult.
UI/UX Improvements
Survivor Sense now works correctly and can be triggered without any cooldowns after getting hit or performing specific parkour actions.
Improvements to the Options Menu information architecture incl. a dedicated Accessibility Tab.
Added feature to show, hide or dynamically display Player Health Bar, Item Selector, and Time of Day Indicator.
The dynamic setting for Player Health Bar is the new default and hides the bar when the player is at 100% health.
The dynamic setting for Item Selector is the new default. The Item Selector becomes visible when in combat and when performing combat actions or using D-Pad.
The dynamic setting for the Time of Day Indicator is the new default setting. The Time of Day Indicator becomes visible during day-night transitional periods.
All of the widgets that are set Hidden or Dynamic become visible in Extended HUD.
Visual Improvements to Player HP and Stamina bars. These elements are lighter and their colors are more neutral.
Visual Improvements to the enemies’ stance meter to more clearly indicate its connection to blunt weapons.
Improvements to the Final Boss Fight
Fixed an issue where the opponent does not react correctly to other players and does not change behavior that might lead to several glitches during CO-OP play.
Alternate opponent behaviors in Phase 2 during CO-OP play.
Opponent performs area attacks more frequently during CO-OP sessions.
Shortening the narrative scenes between the phases in a boss fight.
Boss fight pacing improvements.
Outro Improvements
Improvements of the game endings sequences. Additional end-of-game scenes have been added to better align gameplay and outro scenes.
Balance Tweaks
Higher Rank Bows are now more easily accessible at Merchants and in the world.
Banshees and Chargers are now more easily spotted in the Infected hordes during the night.
Technical Improvements
Introduced high-performance preset that optimizes the displayed graphics which allows you to play Dying Light 2 on older computers and laptops.
PC DX12 cache-related improvements. The game now works smoother upon the first launch.
AVX technology is no longer used in the game, improving issues related to a game crashing on the launch.
Improvements in outdoor lightin
g.
Improvements to sun shadows.
Improvements to spotlight shadows.
Improvements to Motion Blur – added intensity and distance blur customization.
Brutality Pack
Player hits with sharp weapons are now more precise and allow Players to chop off body parts of opponents and cut them in half more easily (vertically and horizontally).
Reworked audio for enemy hit response – different sounds are played depending on the strength of the hit and the damage the player deals.
Blood splats on the ground appear when Player hits the opponent.
If a player is close to the enemy during the attacks, the opponent’s blood will splash on the screen.
Improved blood effects on enemy bodies after hits.
A dead enemy is now interactive and reacts accurately to blows and injuries.
A new effect of bloodstains on the enemies’ bodies after hit.
New blood FXs have been added
… and numerous additional bug fixes and quality improvements.
The best-selling games of the past week on Steam have been announced, and Dying Light 2 dominated the charts. In the fifth week of 2022, Dying Light 2 held the top three positions, and held six of the top 10 spots overall. That's possible due to the game's various editions, all of which are selling well, it seems.
Outside of Dying Light 2, Lost Ark Platinum Founder's Pack landed at No. 4, with preorders for Elden Ring coming in at No. 6. It Takes Two ended the week as the eighth best-selling game, while Total War: Warhammer III preorders finished tenth. The lists are based on revenue, not unit sales.
To put Dying Light 2's launch on PC into context, it reached a peak concurrent record of more than 274,000, which is higher than what Halo Infinite was able to achieve--and that game was free (for multiplayer).
One last stat to illustrate how huge Dying Light 2s Steam Launch is
It's set a higher peak concurrent players number than Halo Infinite did, which was Free To Play for Multiplayer
This data is available due to how Valve shares information publicly. Other PC stores and console platforms like PlayStation and Xbox do not share similar levels of detail about sales and player behavior.
It’s hard not to feel a little bit sorry for Dying Light 2: Stay Human. The game’s been in-development for an eternity, and finally released this week, but it’s launching in the shadow of two juggernauts: Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring (there’s Gran Turismo 7 just around the corner as well). With so many huge releases on the, ahem, horizon, Techland’s sequel seems hard to justify – at least right now.
It’s a good game, though – let-down by unfulfilled promise, perhaps, but still fun. As we explained in our Dying Light 2 PS5 review: “Dying Light 2 is a super solid follow-up to the 2015 original, building upon its fantastic gameplay loop with new traversal options for even more parkour fun. It's extremely disappointing, however, that the narrative and open world promises Techland made in the lead up to launch haven't been realised. Your choices don't have nearly as much impact as we would like, and the map is much more rigid than pre-release footage would have you believe. Still, Dying Light 2 feels awesome and empowering to play, and that can go a long way.”
