[Update] Dying Light has now been moved forward from February 2015, to January 30th (EU) and January 27th (US).

Techland’s follow-up to the Dead Island games has been marked by the dreaded ‘TBA’ for quite a while now. At first, gamers were expecting a Christmas 2013 release. Then it shifted to April (with a playable demo scheduled to released in February). Now, Dying Light is still listed as TBA by both Steam and GAME (as of 9/04/14) and guess what? Yup, no demo.

Dying Light

Could Dying Light’s promo trailer’s draw distance, texture detail, shadow, lighting and enemy detail (see image below) be causing performance issues?

Considered by many to be the true sequel of the original Dead Island (due to the cookie-cutter Dead Island: Riptide) and the fact that very few next-gen releases are actually looking ‘next-gen’, Dying Light has already pulled-in a lot of followers due to its impressive engine, RPG and free-runner game mechanics.

Reasons for Dying Light’s delay

Dying Light on current-gen consoles

Many first-phase releases (first games released for a new console) must be ported to current-gen in order to guarantee their publishers steady sales. Unfortunately this will mean extended delays due to having to make sure current-gen builds can run as smoothly as possible while still maintaining a majority of the look and feel of their next-gen cousins.

Dying Light looks impressive. Could the current-gen ports be holding the games launch back if the publisher is demanding a same-day multiplatform release?

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– Dying Light’s night enemies, zombie detail and online features

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Dying Light’s next-gen performance

dying light mele

This looks so real! Quick, take a pic for TwitFace!

The second reason would obviously have to be the next-gen build itself. There could not only be issues with design, code or last minute bug polishing…but heavy issues with next-gen performance. The Xbox One and PS4 consoles may be powerful but with Watch Dogs recently taking a last minute engine pit-stop, could this be another reason for Dying Light’s delay?

The perfect time to release Dying Light

It’s no secret that Dead Island: Riptide was the stick used to break the Dead Island cash-cow pinata. These funds were immediately poured into Dying Light and the results so far have really impressed. But does this mean Techland’s marketing budget has suffered and/or could Techland simply be waiting for a golden opportunity?

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is the king of kings for game marketing. Could Techland simply be waiting for this huge gaming event to propel their final product onto gamers shopping lists? With a new release date of February 2105 it could take much more than E3 to keep it in gamers minds. Also, March is always the key month to ship a game in the new year, (so people can fully recover from Christmas and New Year costs) so don’t be surprised to see a month or so added to that.