Dying Light 2's Prologue Butchered by Its Own Developers

Mixed. That's where Dying Light 2's recent Steam review score sits now, dragged down by a flood of negative responses to Patch 1.28, also known as The Breach update. The update was supposed to be a celebration of user-generated content and modding tools. Instead, Techland managed to torch one of the few parts of Dying Light 2 that players actually liked: the prologue.

According to the patch notes, Techland "refined" the prologue to be "shorter and more engaging," letting players reach the open world faster. In practice, that meant ripping out the game's opening story beats with Spike, a returning character from the original Dying Light who also plays a significant role in Dying Light: The Beast. Spike's introduction to Villedor, his interactions with protagonist Aiden, the world-building that set the stage for everything ahead; all of it has been condensed into what multiple players are describing as a brief infodump cutscene. A Reddit user posted the new opening, and it plays like a movie trailer for a game you're already holding.

I don't understand the logic here. Dying Light 2 is nearly four and a half years old. The people still playing it, or picking it up for the first time, are not the audience that needs a shorter tutorial. They're the audience that cares about the world Techland built. Cutting Spike from the game entirely, with no toggle or option to play the original prologue, is the kind of decision that alienates the exact players who stuck around.

The Store Gets Louder, Too

The prologue gutting isn't the only complaint. Patch 1.28 also reworked the UI in ways that, according to Steam reviews, put the in-game store and microtransactions front and center. Dying Light 2 already weathered a DL Points controversy, so pushing the shop harder in a game that's single-player was never going to land well. One of the most upvoted negative reviews on Steam calls the prologue changes "distasteful" and "insulting," and it's far from alone.

Some players on Steam and social media have speculated that Spike, a black character, was removed due to pressure from Tencent to appeal to Chinese audiences. There's no evidence for this beyond speculation, but the theory is circulating at all shows how badly Techland has fumbled the messaging.

Techland's response so far has been to post an in-character letter on the official Dying Light X account, supposedly written by Spike himself, teasing his return. "I did need to step away for a while," the message reads. "When I come back, and I will be back, I'm going to need your help." Whether that means Techland always planned to bring Spike back in a future update or is scrambling to reverse course after the backlash, nobody outside the studio knows. The community response to the letter has been overwhelmingly negative either way.

The Breach update's actual headline feature, a UGC platform with community-made maps and official mods like third-person and low-gravity modes, is a legitimately interesting addition. But it's been completely buried by the prologue disaster. Dying Light 2 currently holds a 76 average on OpenCritic, and its Steam trajectory is heading the wrong direction. For a game that Techland has spent four years painstakingly improving, undoing goodwill this fast with a single patch is almost impressive.