Exclusive: Dying Light 2’s new zombie types explained with official concept art

As exciting as it’s gameplay debut at E3 2018 was, one question was on everybody’s mind during the reveal of Dying Light 2: Where are all the zombies? The focus of the open world game’s promotional material so far has very much been on the humans, an intentional approach by Techland to demonstrate the strides its making in storytelling, but GamesRadar+ is happy to reveal some exclusive Dying Light 2 concept art showing off a member of the undead in all their fleshy glory.

This particular chap, as you can tell by the blue armour, was previously a member of the Peacekeeper faction in Dying Light 2, a group of paramilitary populists who seek to bring order to the apocalypse with an iron fist, and one of many Wildcard factions that the player will be dealing with throughout their adventures. Set fifteen years after the events of Dying Light, the zombies you know from free-running across Harran are a very different beast to the ones you’ll be encountering in this sequel.

“We have this whole cycle of infected life in the game” explains Dying Light 2’s Lead Game Designer Tymon Smektała. “The infected start as a Viral, which is someone who just got bitten and just got infected, so they still show traces of humanity, and at this point they are very quick, very dangerous – they avoid the sun at all costs. But after some time in that state, they turn into what we call Biters, which are your regular zombies; slowly moving infected that, if able, will try and grab you and infect you or eat you, but the sunlight is dangerous to them, and they are not as quick and as agile as the Virals.”

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“And if Biters stay in the sun for a long period of time or under a UV light, they turn into Degenerates; decaying zombies that are very weak with pieces of flesh falling off of them, so they’re not really that dangerous to you. But still you have to keep an eye for them because Dying Light 2 is a systemic game, a lot of things happen emergently. And of course, there’s a different path of evolution for the Infected where they turn into the Volatiles, which are the most dangerous, extreme night predators. If you see them, you just need to run. There’s no fighting with those guys because they will just kill you.”

It sounds like fighting off the undead in Dying Light 2 is going to be even more of a challenge this time around, so good thing your character is an all-round freerunning maestro, with a bunch of new parkour moves and abilities to help them stay high above the danger. Dying Light 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, but you can expect to play it sometime soon on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Stay tuned to GamesRadar+ for more news and coverage of Dying Light 2 later this week, or check out our guide to the best new games of 2019 and beyond.