Dying Light 2 Stay Human

I didn't work much on Dying Light 2 because I was part of another project's team. But as we all know, game launches always come with a lot to do and not enough people to get it all done.

That's how I got the task of implementing telemetry. The system had been in a prototype stage for a while, and no one really looked after it since the people responsible for it had already left the company. A few months before the release, an analyst became interested in the data to track player activity and prepare reports. The idea was to use this data to improve game balance and plan future events or challenges.

I didn't know much about telemetry. I knew what it was and how to integrate it because I had worked with ready-made solutions in mobile projects at previous jobs. But I had never been responsible for both integrating and implementing such a system. Luckily, the previous programmers left some documentation, and I could ask how telemetry worked in the first Dying Light, which helped me create a simple but stable solution. I focused on stability because I didn't have much time with the fast-approaching game release.

I also managed to add a few features I'm proud of. One of them was remote configuration, which was a huge plus. It allowed us to turn data collection on and off, change how often it was logged, and control when it was sent to the server, all without needing to rebuild the game. This was useful for reducing the amount of data collected since data transfer costs money. An interesting side note is that the config scripts were text-based, so modders quickly figured out how to edit them and turn off the system.

After the launch, I did some maintenance and had ideas for system's development, but then I moved to the tools team. A new person took over telemetry, and I think he did a great job improving what I had started. Still, I'm proud that I was able to jump into the project quickly and deliver a working solution despite the pressure.