Dying Light kills off zombie previous-gen versions

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times – every dime you spend on previous gen is a dime you didn’t spend on current gen. Well, the folks at Techland seem to agree – they’ve dropped the PS3 and Xbox 360 from their upcoming title, Dying Light. Revealed on their Facebook page, the team essentially came to the conclusion that the previous gen version just wasn’t up to scratch for the quality they are trying to hit. Here’s the letter in its entirety:

Dear Gamers,

As you probably know, we’re wrapping up the development of Dying Light, our biggest and most ambitious project to date. We spent the last three years making sure that all the features of our game add up to create a truly next-gen experience.

Much of this “next-gen feel” is tightly connected to the technological side of Dying Light. For instance, up to 200,000 objects can be displayed in the game at once. Add to this our use of realistic, physics-based lighting technology and you really start to push the next-gen systems to the limits. Features like these along with our core gameplay pillars – such as the player-empowering Natural Movement, threefold character development system, and vast open world – are all an inherent part of how Dying Light plays. However, combining all of these into one fluid experience is only possible on technologically advanced platforms.

Therefore, after thorough internal testing, we have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to leave past-gen systems behind and release Dying Light exclusively on the next-gen consoles and PC. Put simply, older consoles just couldn’t run the game and stay true to the core vision of Dying Light at the same time.

To ensure you enjoy Dying Light as much as we would like you to, we chose to release it without any compromises on the three strongest systems available. Thanks to this, you’ll get the full and best experience regardless of the platform you play on.

We hope you understand the hard choice we’ve had to make. With the launch just around the corner, we can’t wait to show you Dying Light in the state it was meant to be. We’re looking forward to your reactions and impressions as we release the game in January 2015.

I personally applaud the team at Techland for taking this direction. It’s the right decision and the final product will be better for it.

Dying Light is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC in January of 2015.

See below for our list of partners and affiliates: