Dying Light 2: Stay Human has been hit with a wave of negative Steam reviews following Patch 1.28, also known as The Breach update, which arrived on June 10, 2026. The update was intended to transform the four-year-old open-world survival game into a community-powered platform - but several of its side effects have sent the game's overall Steam rating sliding to "Mixed".
What The Breach Was Supposed to Do
The main thing The Breach aims to do is turn Dying Light 2 into a "platform" with custom maps and mods - an ambitious long-term UGC strategy built on mod.io integration. The update introduces an enhanced UI/UX that allows PC players on Steam and Epic Games Store alongside console players on PS5, PS4, and Xbox to discover, download, and play custom maps and mods seamlessly.
The Breach debuts with its first chapter, Survival Archives, which uses returning characters Tolga and Fatin as guides to a collection of curated maps and gameplay experiences. New gameplay options include third-person traversal, low-gravity parkour, hardcore survival pockets, and experimental modifiers.
Techland's UGC program manager Rafal Polito framed it as a long-held ambition: "Patch 1.28 is something we wanted to do for a long time - opening Dying Light 2: Stay Human much more to player creativity and giving you not only new ways to play the game, but also inviting you to create it with us."
According to Techland, The Breach is intended to serve as an ongoing platform for new gameplay experiences that sit alongside the main game while remaining connected through progression systems, rewards, and dedicated content. Future chapters are planned to introduce additional themed worlds, gameplay concepts, and curated community experiences through a rolling release schedule.
Where It Went Wrong
The problems stem not from the UGC features themselves, but from changes Techland made to the base game alongside them.
The prologue cut is the most contentious point. As the patch notes revealed, Dying Light 2's infamously slow prologue has been trimmed down significantly to be "more engaging" and let players dive into the "core of the game quicker". In practice, this means stripping out opening story and world-building scenes involving the character Spike. Completely cutting this scene from the game with no player choice isn't going down well, with Twitter user TheHiddenOneAC pointing out it's now "lost media", and one of the most popular negative Steam reviews calling it "distasteful" and "insulting".
Some Steam reviews are even suggesting that Spike, a Black man, was removed from the game due to pressure from Tencent to appeal to Chinese audiences - though this is just a rumour right now, and it's certainly not a good look.
Microtransaction visibility is the second major complaint. The update makes changes to Dying Light 2's UI that are meant to enhance "both navigation and functionality", but have put even more of a spotlight on the in-game store and microtransactions. This is particularly sensitive ground given that DL Points were already a flashpoint controversy for the game in previous updates.
Four Years of Post-Launch History
As anyone who remembers the DL Points controversy will know, Techland hasn't always done the right thing with its Dying Light 2 updates, and that's become very clear with the mixed reception to the latest update, which has notably dropped the game's review score to "Mixed" on Steam.
That said, over the last four years Techland has reworked the game's parkour system, added Volatiles to Villedor's nights, injected its combat with greater oomph, and added various features like New Game+ and replayable bounties. The studio's commitment to post-launch support is hard to dispute.
According to SteamDB, Dying Light 2's daily Steam concurrents are in the low thousands - decent for a four-year-old, primarily single-player game, but not the kind of numbers that power a Minecraft-style behemoth. Whether that audience is large enough to sustain the kind of UGC ecosystem Techland is imagining remains to be seen.
What This Means for Buyers
The core Dying Light 2: Stay Human experience - its parkour, open world, and survival systems - remains intact underneath the controversy. If you haven't picked it up yet, the good news is the game regularly appears at competitive prices on key resellers. Check the live deals below and track how prices move over time with the price history chart.
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Live deal tracker
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is currently available from AU$7.65 across verified key resellers listed above.
Techland has not yet issued a public statement responding to the negative review wave. Given the studio's track record of iterating on community feedback, a follow-up patch addressing the most contentious changes is plausible - but for now, the Steam score tells its own story.
