Dying Light developer Techland announced earlier this week that development has been halted for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the aforementioned first-person zombie action survival game. Instead, Dying Light will only be released for the next-gen consoles and Windows PC. Techland addressed the issue in an open letter to the fans. In short, the company realized the game was not designed for the last-gen consoles and decided to focus solely on the next-gen versions. This was a bold and wise choice for Techland.
Having played Dying Light, it certainly does not look like a game that was meant to be played on the Xbox 360 or PS3. It looks and plays like a next-gen game. I understand this is a blow to owners who have not yet converted to the new consoles. However, I would much rather play the definitive, ideal version of a game than an inferior, downgraded port. Case in point: Look no further than the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of WWE 2K15. The results are less than stellar. Visual Concepts compromised the integrity of the game to release inferior ports for the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. Sure, Techland probably could have continued development of Dying Light for the last-gen consoles. It is possible that WB Interactive could have outsourced the ports to another developer, but what would be the point? Dying Light was clearly not meant to be played on the last-gen consoles, so it is time to move on. The new console generation is well under way, so it is time to move away from games that ported to everything to achieve inferior results.
Reading through Techland’s open letter, the company’s explanation for discontinuing the last-gen versions are satisfactory. The company performed internal tests and saw that those versions were not working. Therefore, Techland made the right call to scrap the last-gen versions. That could arguably cost Techland and WB Interactive money in the short-term. However, releasing lame, inferior ports that draw poor reviews and scrutiny are bad for the company image. It is refreshing to see a developer like Techland stand on its laurels and admit that something like this does not work. In the eyes of Techland, to release the game on anything other than the next-gen consoles and PC would compromise the integrity of the project.
Dying Light will hit the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC on January 27, 2015 in North and South America.
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