"Dying Light 2" has struggled since its announcement at E3 2018 nearly three years ago. The developer, Techland, made very large promises regarding the impact of individual player choices on gameplay and outcomes, requiring multiple playthroughs for those who wanted to see more than half of the content offered. However, the game was not scheduled for release in the spring of 2020, and no new release date has been set. The game also lost lead writer Pavel Selinger, who left the studio earlier this year after more than 20 years at the studio.

According to a new report on Techland published by TheGamer, the project appears to be largely due to problems within the studio, particularly CEO Pawel Marchewka's "autocratic" management style. to 10 current and former employees. According to interviews with 10 current and former employees, problems include an over-reliance on outside consultants with little experience in the game industry (their advice is often ignored), conflicts at the production level, high staff turnover, and micromanagement that some developers have described as the "eye of Sauron," which has collectively resulted in a "cohesive and consistent" departure from games. collectively have the effect of stripping the game of a "coherent vision."

"Techland has a history of hiring people that the team had "high hopes" for, but who ended up being of no help," says one source.

"They hired Marc Albinet, a former game director at Ubisoft, who was supposed to reshape design at the studio; even he, a 30-year veteran, couldn't break through the upper management, which is harder to change than the rotation of the earth."

According to another source, new hires and consultants who do not follow company policy are eventually sidelined and eventually resign or are fired: "To have a career at Techland, you have to be subservient.

Techland's insistence on using its own internal technology to run its games has also been a stumbling block, according to several employees. Dying Light uses the Chrome Engine, Techland's proprietary 3D engine, but after the first game was released, Pavel Zawodny, then head of development, decided to develop a sequel with a more widely used engine, such as Unreal or Unity and then bring it to the Chrome Engine. Marchewka, however, insisted that everything be done in Chrome Engine 6.

"It made it slower and everyone was frustrated," he said. He would ask why everyone wasn't working faster, but it was because the technology wasn't keeping up with the speed. We can work faster, but we have to get here. Experts know what the goal is, and they should be allowed the flexibility to decide what is best."

Zawodny, who currently heads CD Projekt Red's Wroclaw studio, brought in his own consultants to create a more conventional workflow, but it appears that many of their suggestions were not adopted. One employee told TheGamer that the current system is "a production pipeline that changes so quickly and rapidly that it's almost non-existent." Many producers have been hired to get the gears turning, but their efforts are reportedly often thwarted by veteran employees.

The report also touches on a variety of other issues, such as producers interfering with design decisions, with one source stating that Dying Light 2 producers "can't keep the pipeline or milestones together, but they do have time to redo designs and discuss design There will be time to do that," the source stated. "Just like a game director deciding something, even though they are responsible for a certain feature, because Pyza (creative director Adrian 'Pyza' Ciszewski) and Marchewka have seen it work in a different way in other games, they can do it that way. There are many examples of people overriding this for bullshit reasons such as."

Marchewka defended the studio and its process, saying that "trust and the flow of ideas in a large organization is a complex issue."

"We are currently working on an innovative game that will be loved by millions of players around the world, and therefore we are always looking for ways to improve the communication of fresh and interesting ideas. But not every idea is a good idea for this project, and only the best ones that fit the vision of the project will be implemented in our games."

Unfortunately, no release date for "Dying Light 2" has yet been announced; when Techland confirmed Selinger's departure in January, it said that it would "soon have some exciting news about 'Dying Light 2,'" but as of now, it has no word on what kind of news it is.

Update: In a statement, Techland said it takes complaints about the company, especially about working conditions, "very seriously."

"We are constantly working to improve our internal communications," a studio representative said. 'We pay particular attention to the opinions and suggestions of our employees regarding the company.' In our opinion, the comments of Paveł Marcevka, quoted in the text, unquestionably confirm our commitment to this issue and the fact that we take full responsibility for how the company is perceived by our former and current employees. and confirms the fact that we take full responsibility for how the company is perceived by our former and current employees."

"We will never stop striving to make Techland the kind of employer that all talents in the industry dream of being - a friendly place for all ambitious people who want to do their part in the game development industry, including those who want to change it We clearly declare that Dying Light 2 is the most innovative project in our studio's 30-year history, and this is echoed in the development timeframe."

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