Dying Light is still seeing updates years after release and my love of it continues

One of the best surprise I had playing video game, I wasn't expecting much and this game hooked me and entertained me for hours

Quotethe two people who did the Dying Light Linux port no longer work at Techland

inb4: Linux ports are too complicated. We can't afford to hire the (2) people required to do it.

Is it already playable with Mesa RadeonSI? The last time I tried 2 months ago (Mesa 19.0), it still started with black screen...

We also saw patch 1.17 on May 21 this year. Techland <3

QuoteGeneral fixes:
Fixed an issue that caused the game to sometimes crash on Windows 10
Fixed Korean and Chinese icons displaying incorrectly on OSX systems

New Features:
LATAM (español-latinoamérica) added as a selectable language in Steam

Additional fixes:
Minor bug fixes
General build stability increased

Catch them showcasing Dying Light 2 on E3 in a few days, I think it will be pretty sweet.
Until then, enjoy these two nice interviews!
Dying Light 2 Interview with the Lead Game Designer on the Modern Dark Ages setting, RPG Elements

Techland’s Pawel Rohleder on Experimenting with Ray Tracing and NVIDIA DLSS in Dying Light 2, DX12 Implementation & More

Techland also hangs out on Reddit so feel free to pop by /r/dyinglight

Dying Light is first game that I almost completed. I didn't complete only last mission, because it too long and too much jumping. Hope, Dying Light 2 will be available on Linux too.

Lets hope they at least whitelist it for proton if they don't want to port...i am not willing to buy games that don't at least commit to keep proton working...
DL1 was a real blast, maybe i should install it again some time ^^

As long as Dying Light 2 works through SteamPlay it is fine for me.

QuoteThis is one of the few times I will probably ever suggest running a native Linux game through Steam Play, instead of using the native Linux version as performance in Steam Play is so much better and smoother. You can see that in the previous video I did previously below.

On my setup, the native version felt a bit more smoothly.
But I stopped playing the native linux version because of a bug. When using "death from above" with bladed weapons, the game crashes (not always but 99% of the time). This is super annoying. And it seems, I'm not the only one with this problem.

I'm still playing this, on and off, really love it. I honestly can't say I've thought the performance wasn't good enough to make me want to try it through Proton though and this is with a GTX970.

I won't be getting Dying Light 2 however, if it's not native. Well maybe in a couple of years when it's greatly reduced in price.

Quoting: liam... from what I know the two people who did the Dying Light Linux port no longer work at Techland.

Weren't these two people also interns? Anyway, Techland earned a lot of love and loyalty from me for Dying Light and the Dead Island games all being available on Linux. Pity we'll not see this newest one available on Linux, too.

Feeling ignored because I game on Linux, I'm pretty used to that. Feeling abandoned by a company like Techland, who supported Linux in the past, makes me feel sad and a little betrayed. :(

A little question for those who have played through the whole thing: I have finished the main campaign in the main game, but have never even looked at The Following. If I start The Following, does it begin you as a brand new player (with no skills, no equipment) and you play it from scratch, or does it just follow on from your main game with same skills / equipment stocked up?

I think I'd prefer it if it was a completely separate entity where you have to build up again, and you can play it completely separately from the main game. Can anyone let me know, thanks?

[Meanwhile, I did play the main game on an older system than the one I have now, and I feel that performance is fine on the native Linux without needing to resort to Proton. In fact, I'd only like to resort to Proton if the game being played is really bad on native.]

Quoting: vickopIs it already playable with Mesa RadeonSI? The last time I tried 2 months ago (Mesa 19.0), it still started with black screen...

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/2766/post_id=18074

Quoting: g000hA little question for those who have played through the whole thing: I have finished the main campaign in the main game, but have never even looked at The Following. If I start The Following, does it begin you as a brand new player (with no skills, no equipment) and you play it from scratch, or does it just follow on from your main game with same skills / equipment stocked up?

I think I'd prefer it if it was a completely separate entity where you have to build up again, and you can play it completely separately from the main game. Can anyone let me know, thanks?

[Meanwhile, I did play the main game on an older system than the one I have now, and I feel that performance is fine on the native Linux without needing to resort to Proton. In fact, I'd only like to resort to Proton if the game being played is really bad on native.]

You can do either, I believe. Like you can make a fresh character and go straight to The Following, but the content miiiight be a bit tough for a low level player.

Reading another article about DX12 and possibly supporting google Stadia, it makes me hopeful there will be a Vulkan port of DL2 and if not a native Linux version it should run quite well with Proton. Ive not tested any DX12 games in wine, but I'm hopeful that worst comes to the worst that performs well in Proton too.


Last edited by lejimster on 6 June 2019 at 3:09 pm UTC

Quoting: g000hIf I start The Following, does it begin you as a brand new player (with no skills, no equipment) and you play it from scratch, or does it just follow on from your main game with same skills / equipment stocked up?

Your choice. The story is that Crane finds a way out of Harran into 'the countryside' so continuing your previous character is fine, starting a new save is also fine.
A word of caution if you decide to delete your save file: The game uses only one save file and deleting it from The Following will delete it for the main game as well.

Backing up the game save file is strongly recommended! Save file location:
~/.steam/steam/userdata/xxxxxxx/239140/remote/out/save/
(The xxxxxx's are of course your own id number.)

Quoting: g000hI feel that performance is fine on the native Linux without needing to resort to Proton.

No. Just no.
People, really, I'm begging you, everyone. Stop spreading this lie. I don't care that it is your personal opinion. We didn't get a properly functional Linux version with Dying Light. If you are a die hard Linux-native-or-gtfo person, you can still play the native version. But considering the vastly superior experience and performance you geet from simply clicking the 'Force Proton' checkbox, there's just no reason to gimp yourself. The Linux version simply isn't good enough - period.

Cue rant...

The Dying Light Linux native version is a broken, horrible crapfest. The fact that "IT WORKS" is not a good enough reason to use it when the Windows version runs Proton Platinum-level with upwards of 200% performance. It also hasn't worked well on AMD GPU's since forever, and even today it's not a surefire thing that it will run at all.

I too played the native version and as you see in the video in this article, the performance is not even comparable. Double FPS is just the start. It plays so much smoother, you have to experience it to understand. All the issues with stuttering etc. that comes with this tragically horrid port are non-existent on the Windows version.
Plenty of long standing bugs (to name just one, Drop Attacks causing sound system lag/breakage, game freezing or even crashing) are not present in the Windows version.

Then we have the additional graphics options that did not make it into the Linux version.

• NVIDIA HBAO+ (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion+) - vastly improved ambient occlusion, meaning better shadows, darker darkness and increased immersion, especially at night. Good lord, it makes a notable difference.


• NVIDIA Depth Of Field (NVDOF) - increases the precision and image quality of depth of field blurring, and enables Techland to specify the intensity of blurring on a case by case basis.


• NVIDIA PCSS (Percentage Closer Soft Shadows) - an algorithm that mimics the behavior of shadows in nature, progressively softening shadows as the distance from the casting object increases and reducing aliasing on the edges of the rendered shadow.

Take a look for yourself how these make a difference. Do note that there has been plenty of performance patches since this article.

Convinced yet?

Just saying that I've always found native Dying Light to run decently well. Maybe it is your choices of processor, graphics, drivers, or Linux distribution which contributed to your poor experience. But the fact that I did not have a poor experience is my current position on this subject. On which note, 60 FPS on native Linux or 120 FPS on Proton - I'd still play the native one. 10 FPS on native and 100 FPS on Proton - sure, I'd jump to Proton.