As with E3 2021, gamescom once again opts for an all digital showing this year.

Alongside some week-long programming from event organisers themselves - including a headline stream hosted by Geoff Keighley of The Game Awards fame, and an indie-focused showcase - you can expect a dedicated show from Xbox and another Future Games Show later in the week.

Though busier than last year's show, it's still more subdued than the gamescom we've come to know over the years - but at least, like E3, 2021's conferences are condensed into a single week than a seemingly never-ending list of streams over the summer. Phew!

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It's not been particularly smooth sailing for developer Techland's Dying Light 2. Since its 2018 reveal, the highly anticipated parkour-infused first-person horror sequel has been plagued by setbacks, ranging from multiple delays to high-profile staff departures. Following a damning report on its troubled development, Techland has now delivered a video update on the game.

When last we heard from Techland, the developer was insisting Dying Light 2 wasn't, as widely reported, caught in development hell. "[As far as I know]," the company wrote in a tweet, "the definition of a dev hell requires the game to not make any development progress, while DL2 keeps moving forward. We announced the game too early but it's far from being in a dev hell."

At the same time, Techland promised that fans could expect an update on Dying Light 2's progress today, 17th March. And with that update now here, it's fair to say those hoping for anything resembling substantial news will likely have been a little disappointed. Most of the update was spent with various members of the team reading out angry messages from fans, while the remainder merely asked for their continued patience.

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Details of an upcoming Collector's Edition for Dying Light 2 have reportedly been leaked, intimating the game - which currently only sports a nebulous "2021" release window - might be coming sooner rather than later.

On New Year's Eve developer Techland reminded fans to "keep your heads up for 2021" and in early January, said "exciting news" was on the way, but otherwise, details have been pretty sparse.

While the "exciting news" has yet to be confirmed, an eagle-eyed Resetera poster has shared details of an unannounced Collector's Edition, which reportedly popped up on Czech retailer Xzone.cz before being unceremoniously yanked again. It was still available via cache for a few hours thereafter, too, but seems to have been scrubbed out now... albeit not before the internet spotted and screencapped, though.

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Techland has moved to reassure fans concerned about Dying Light 2 after a 22-year veteran at the studio left.

Paweł Selinger, who had worked as "narration designer" on Dying Light 2 for the last two years, left Technland at the end of 2020 after over 22 years at the company.

"Paweł Selinger, who has been the narration designer for the last two years, decided at the end of 2020 to end his cooperation with Techland and to pursue his further career elsewhere," Techland told PC Gamer.

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Yet another spring game has been delayed, as today developer Techland announced Dying Light 2 will not make its scheduled release window.

Originally planned for release sometime this spring, Techland explained more time was needed to "deliver an experience that lives up to our own high standards and the expectations of you, our fans."

"We know you are awaiting the game eagerly, and we want to deliver exactly what we promised."

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The E3 bulletin runs each day of E3 week. Here are 2019's entries: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday

E3 Wednesday feels different this year. There's the standard sleep-deprived exhaustion and feeling that we've overdosed on high-definition footage of people being seriously injured in slow motion, but with a lingering sense of having missed something.

What this might be is anybody's guess, as the list of suspects is longer than Phil Spencer's shopping list: Call of Duty? Assassin's Creed? A proper Ubisoft bombshell? Could it be that it's not really E3 without waiting 40 minutes to watch a suited Sony exec reciting statistics no living human cares about? We will not rest until we have answers or until there's a proper row about next-gen leaks, whichever comes first.

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Dying Light 2 is a very ambitious sequel. Its map, Techland tells us, is four times as big as its predecessor's and players will see about 50 per cent of the game's content in a single playthrough. The reason for this is that players will regularly have to make big decisions about the way the game's action unfolds - the consequences of those choices can be as far reaching as determining whether a character lives or dies, sometimes even determining whether you unlock an entire section of the map or not. Having seen about half an hour of the game in a presentation at E3, I'm very much intrigued.

In the hands-off demo, we are introduced to protagonist Aiden Caldwell and The City - a European metropolis and humanity's last true bastion on earth. Fifteen years on from the events of Dying Light, the uninfected population has dwindled to almost nothing, while the infection has continued to spread and change across the globe. Now, The City is on the brink of collapse with drinking water about to run out. Local tavern owner Frank has taken it upon himself to set up a meeting between The City's two main factions - the Peacekeepers and the Scavengers - and a mysterious figure called the Colonel. The Colonel leads a group called the renegades from a fortified water treatment plant with the means and resources to resupply the city. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the meeting went sour, with Frank getting shot by the renegades who then fled in a truck. This is where we saw our first big choice - stay with Frank and help him seek aid, or chase after the truck?

Given there's not much parkour involved in treating a gunshot wound, Aiden gave chase, giving us a chance to see some of the new parkour mechanics - a more versatile grappling hook, dynamic platforming elements and some refined wall jumping in particular - and the decayed European architecture of the city district. Eventually we caught up with the truck and infiltrated the stronghold - a well organised base of operations with crops, community projects and a surprising number of children. Fighting our way to a confrontation with the Colonel, we faced another big choice. The Colonel claimed that the water reserves surrounding his stronghold were the only thing preventing his aggressors from invading the compound and killing everyone inside - he was sympathetic to the plight of those living without water and willing to help, but turning on the pumps was out of the question.

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Dying Light 2 comes out spring 2020, developer Techland has announced. That's on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

The open-world zombie kill-em-up popped up during Microsoft's E3 2019 press conference to reveal a new trailer. In it we see the game's new protagonist navigate the world.

Dying Light 2 is set in The City, which is described as "a post-apocalyptic, modern dark-age outpost". It begins 15 years after the events of the first Dying Light, and "humanity ekes out an existence while brutal factions vie for power, and the infected skulk in dark buildings and basements until night comes and they can reclaim the streets".

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