As it turns out Deep Silver has tasked German developer Yager to make Dead Island 2. There was a chance that Techland would be the team behind the sequel, but with Deep Silver moving on, it helped towards the decision to become more independent. “We knew that our publisher had decided to go with someone else and we wanted to make some fundamental changes to the game anyway,” says Marchewka. “So we thought we'd try to deliver on the game we always wanted to, without having to ensure we check boxes from the publisher.” Though Marchewka does wonder what might have been. “I'm interested in seeing what Dead Island 2 is, obviously, it's our child”, he says, but it would be difficult to go back. He thinks it’s for the best, as ideas might end up being replicated between products, “We'd have to really separate a team from the rest, we’d have to make sure that great ideas weren't going between games, and it's better to look at it from some distance.”

Now Techland is preparing for the release of The Following, a significant expansion to Dying Light that adds a new chapter to the story, an upgradeable buggy and new weapons as well as enhancing the original game. These days Techland have a lot more goodwill towards them, thanks in no small part to their work in their game’s community, particularly the decision to memorialise a seventeen year old fan who passed away due to cancer with a mural in the game, something that Marchewka seems shy to talk about. “I wouldn't say that was actually us,” he says. “We didn't do it for any publicity. We thought it was fair and it's something we can do. We didn't think so many people would find out about it, we didn't plan it, and we just did it for their family.”