Dying Light 2 won’t actually take 20 days to complete

Development studio Techland has clarified the length of Dying Light 2 – its upcoming open-world, parkour zombie game – in response to backlash from disappointed fans.

Over the weekend, the studio claimed on Twitter that the game would take “at least 500 hours” to fully complete. Although intended as a positive announcement, it quickly drew complaints about unnecessarily bloated game lengths, as well as the irritation of some players who found the extended playtime unenticing.

In a follow-up tweet yesterday, Techland significantly revised the game’s estimated playtime downwards in an apparent attempt to alleviate those concerns. The game’s main storyline will take approximately 20 hours to complete, it says, while players looking to complete the main story alongside all side quests can expect to spend 80 hours in the game.

The 500-hour figure applies only to those who want to fully complete every aspect of the game, the studio said, such as finding all points of interest on its map, exploring every dialogue option, finding every collectible, and completing all side quests. The idea is that the game will cater to a range of playstyles.

“We wanted to clarify our recent communication about the amount of hours required to complete the game,” the official Dying Light 2 Twitter account tweeted.

“Dying Light 2: Stay Human is designed for players with different gameplay styles and preferences to explore the world how they see fit.”

Analysis: wasted time

Game length has long been a hot topic. While hundred-hour playthroughs make for impressive marketing metrics and appear to give players more bang for their buck, they often amount to little more than repetitive slogs. Tired mechanics are recycled over a mammoth playthrough for the sake of length, not quality game design. 

When indie games, like last year’s Unpacking, show that brilliant gaming experiences can be squeezed into a concise four hours, it calls into question whether humongous triple-A titles really need to demand weeks-worth of your time. Is Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s 60-hour storyline really worth its length if many players don’t bother making it to the end?

The announcement that Dying Light 2 would take 500 hours to fully complete understandably raised a few eyebrows over the weekend. It suggested Techland’s upcoming title would be the next game to fall to the trend of bloated playtime, raising the ire of some excited fans. The clarification that its main story sits somewhere closer to 20 hours will be welcome news to many, particularly those who are excited to run around a zombie apocalypse but can’t commit days of their life doing so.

We can expect more details of the game to release in the coming weeks. Dying Light 2’s final behind-the-scenes video due later this week will reportedly contain a “huge info drop”. Find all the major details in our Dying Light 2 guide.