Here’s the fateful Tweet: It is, by and large, empty marketing speak. Techland’s way of saying that they’ve made a big open-world zombie game. Look it’s massive! So much to do! As if that doesn’t sound exhausting enough, they compare the game’s playtime to a walk from Warsaw to Madrid. I’m sure the walk is lovely, but I’d much rather fly. Have a rifle through the responses and they aren’t great. “I hate games that require so much time” and “Imma be honest with you, that’s not ideal. Less is more”, largely making up the consensus. In response to some of the negativity, Dying Light 2 followed up their original tweet with another banger. “500 hours is related to maxing out the game – finishing all the quests, endings, and exploring every part of the world, but a regular player should finish the story + side quests and do quite a lot of exploring in less than 100 hours, so don’t worry!” Even with 400 hours knocked off, Dying Light 2 couldn’t sound less appealing. As I near 30, my gaming tastes have changed. I have ’life stuff’ to worry about, like what detergent is cheapest. Office chairs and vacuum cleaners top my wishlists. If I see something on the telly that’s longer than an hour, I weigh up the pros and cons very carefully. When it comes to games, I approach them in a similar way. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla almost made it to checkout over Christmas, until I snapped out of my festive trance and told myself that I’d never finish it. I’d heard the game is long, if overly long. Nowadays, I value games I can add to a “done” pile, over mammoths that’ll fossilise in my hard drive. I reckon the only games I’ve played for 500 hours or more are multiplayer-focused. League Of Legends and World Of Warcraft must have made it in there. Again, though, I dropped them long ago. I don’t want my games to feel like commitments anymore. And Dying Light 2 sure seems like one. Although our recent two-part preview said that it “does stealth a damn sight better than the majority of its open-world FPS contemporaries”, and that its parkour is “an exhilirating thrill reminiscent of Mirror’s Edge at its best”. Maybe, just maybe Dying Light 2 isn’t going to be quite as exhausting as Techland make it out to be, then. It launches on 4th February, so there’s not long to find out.
