As is so often the case, we found in our E3 2014 preview of Dying Light that the ambitious plans of the previous year’s demo had been stripped down to leave behind a clunky, awkward traversal system. The game was originally announced as a 2014 release for PC as well as current- and last-gen consoles, but since Dying Light was delayed to February 2015 those plans have apparently changed.
Techland has announced that Dying Light will no longer be coming to Xbox 360 and PS3, and will instead release only on PC, Xbox One and PS4. The reason? Apparently it’s simply too awesome for last-gen consoles to handle:
“Therefore, after thorough internal testing, we have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to leave past-gen systems behind and release Dying Light exclusively on the next-gen consoles and PC. Put simply, older consoles just couldn’t run the game and stay true to the core vision of Dying Light at the same time.”
It’s important to be a little skeptical about this spin-laden statement. There are almost certainly other factors that went into the decision, such as the fact that Dying Light is supposed to release in just a few months and developing it for three platforms instead of five during crunch time is going to make things much more manageable for Techland.
The fact that Dying Light is now releasing post-holiday 2014 is also no doubt a factor, since we can expect a lot more PS4 and XBox One units to be bought or gifted over the next couple of months, and that in turn will mean a larger consumer base for releases on those consoles. While it’s definitely possible that the Xbox 360 and PS3 simply aren’t equipped to handle Dying Light’s lighting technology and “threefold character development system” (is that just a skill tree?), don’t go taking this announcement as evidence that Dying Light will be the most next-gen game of all time just yet.
Dying Light is set to release on January 27, 2015 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
