Dying Light: The Beastis a moment of celebration for Techland: Kyle Crane is back, the visuals are sharper, the gameplay is deeper, the world is more developed, the franchise is growing, and everything that makesDying Lightgreat remains front and center. ButDying Light: The BeastIt is also a moment of contemplation. The past few years have been hard on developers, and that has not changed yet. As other developers are contemplating the direction of the industry, so is Techland, and it's easy to see how all of that manifests in a classic story as old as the industry: zombies.
Our ultimate goal for the series is to makeDying Light"the go-to zombie game, the ultimate zombie experience," said franchise director Tymon Smektała to me for Game Rant Advance, echoing words I've heard him say before. This humility has always surprised me, as there's no best zombie game list complete without the name.Dying Light(andDead Islandin some instances). But after exchanging over 10,000 words with Smektała and other Techland devs aboutDying Light: The BeastforGame Rant Advance, it became clear: the story of Dying Light: The Beast's development is the story of Techland's humility, which is also the story of this industry. But to understand that, we have to go back to day one.
Game Rant Advance Speakers
- Tymon Smektała - Director of the Dying Light Franchise
- Bruno Guérin - Executive Producer
- Nathan Lemaire - Game Director
- Katarzyna Tarnacka-Polito - Art Director
- Kalina Sobierajska - Quest Designer
Every Game (and Industry) Starts Somewhere
Smekta Wishes Everyone Would Forget the Origins of Dying Light: The Beast
Dying Light: The Beastoriginally began as a DLCforDying Light 2: Stay Human, which leaked online. This moment is what Smektała wishes people would forget because he worries it paints a picture that is slightly undeserved. For some, this is an interesting development and understood iteration of the original, creative idea. For others, there will always be complaints that "Dying Light: The Beastis a DLC," and that's simply untrue. As anyone who understands iteration can attest, ideas will change rapidly. A single idea is not worth much in game development, a dozen little more so, but the ability to execute on a strong idea is what matters. That initial iteration doesn't have that much "in common with the fully-fledged game that players will get to play in the end." In a perfect world, this origin would remain a skeleton in Techland's closet.
As Smektała explained it, Techland burned that old work to the ground and built a new game on its ashes, turning the lackluster situation of the leak into a real, genuine strength for the company. The fuel for that fire was Kyle Crane. The DLC would haveDying Light 2' protagonist, Aiden Caldwell, but that's not what was best for the story or for the game. In a healthy move, this decision reset development and Techland returned to pre-production to prepare a brand new game for the series. Perhaps the ruthless antagonist and beautiful apocalypse concept remain similar, but even then, it's a stretch. This new story was Kyle Crane's story, and Techland worked throughout this new pre-production period to determine the scope of the game. Some decisions made include, but are not limited to, "increasing the map and making it more varied, creating a few dozen new characters, writing a huge number of brand new quests and side quests, allowing ourselves to have a bigger ambition in terms of technological improvements made to our own in-house C-Engine."
"At the end of that pre-production period," Smetaka said, "everyone at the studio understood that what we're looking at is the next game series, one that we were fully ready to pour all of our hearts into." In summary, Smektala also added,
Every game starts somehow - from a genius idea, from an iteration of an existing genre, from the urge to tell something. We started from a leaked project of smaller scale, but this ember allowed us to create something very special to the whole team, and to bring back Kyle Crane a little bit faster than we initially anticipated.
Every Game (Rant) Starts Somewhere
I wasn't here at the beginning of Game Rant; when it started in 2009, I was a kid playing games to escape the hardships of my childhood. I joined Game Rant in 2017 and have always had an appreciation for our origin story, which I see reflected inDying Light: The Beast's. They were born from an idea that spun-off an ill-timed leak; Game Rant was born from an idea that spun-off from the digital publication Screen Rant. In 2009, SR editors Rob Keyes and Ben Kendrick sought to establish Game Rant as its own site during a boom period for websites. As editor-in-chief Anthony Taormina wrote in celebration ofGame Rant's 15th-anniversary"Game Rant was, at the time, a side project—the younger sibling to an older, wiser, and more established elder." We were a standalone DLC who have always had the shadow of those origins cast over us, not so different from a project turning from a DLC into a full-fledged game.Dying Light: The BeastHis story is our story, but this is a story told a hundred times in this industry.
It All Starts Somewhere
From a genius idea, from an iteration, from a DLC, from a spin-off, the game industry has always been born from something else. In the 1950s, the technology was born out of computer scientists working with electronic machines, deciding to try to have fun with it. From Pong to the arcade, the industry continued to evolve from an ever-evolving door of "something elses": what if technology but fun? And so consoles would be born, and so PC technology would expand, and so too would the industry rocket. The industry has humble origins, reflecting Techland's humility in its role inthe zombie genreand reflecting the simplest places everyone's ideas have sprouted. And it grew, and it grew, and it busted, and it recovered, and it grew, and it grew—into an industry that many still believe to be recession and pandemic-proof, even as gamers stare at a plethora of issues in the industry today. But these humble origins of great ideas are everywhere:
- Pokemon evolved from Satoshi Tajiri's love of catching bugs.
- The first Final Fantasy was so-named because Hironobu Sakaguchi planned to quit video games if it did not sell well.
- Untitled Goose Game was born out of a joke that a photo of a goose should be a video game protagonist.
- And there are scores, if not hundreds, of similar stories told throughout the industry.
And so, humble origins is the story of video games.
Kyle Crane Was the Spark
But Techland Didn't Hold the Matches
Kyle Crane fandom is alive everywhere, in and around Techland. The decision regarding Kyle Crane's fate wasn't made on the spot forDying Light: The Beast; Smektała confirmed that the general outline of Kyle's fate had been known to Techland since working on thelore forDying Light 2: Stay Human, as a way to keep the franchise narrative consistent and continuous.Dying Light: The Beastis set to answer many questions regarding the lore and Kyle Crane, but I also asked how Techland was able to identify these questions. It was easier than I anticipated, with Smektała saying,
It's very easy to identify these questions as these are exactly the same questions that you have to answer, squirming like an eel, at every possible opportunity, every meeting with the fans and every meeting with the media. I answered, or had to avoid answering, the question of 'what's the canon ending of The Following' probably a thousand times in my professional life. It had to end one day.
I, for one, apologize for nothing.
But even with all this information at their disposal, that wasn't completely enough to bring Kyle Crane back. Smektała confirmed thatRoger Craig Smith accepting the rolewas the match that lit the fire of his return. As Smektała told me,
The crucial part of us starting the work on Dying Light: The Beast was making sure that we could get Roger Craig Smith on board. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what we’d do if Roger said no. I think this could actually make us look for a different story to tell. Thankfully, Roger found time for us—not easy for a voice actor of such status—and not only agreed to take part in the project, but also saw this as an opportunity to deliver one of the strongest performances of his career, using all the experience he gathered over these 10+ years, to create a changed, more mature take on Kyle Crane.
Of course, Kyle Crane is so iconic inDying Lightand that is due, in large part, to Smith's performance. Anyone else wouldn't deliver the same version of Kyle, much less a matured version, and that's not knocking our industry's actors. They are varied, amazing, and top tier, so much so that they become iconic to their roles. Kyle Crane is Roger Craig Smith; Roger Craig Smith is Kyle Crane (and a bunch of others). It wouldn't be the same, with all of this exemplifying the roles that gamers, media, and actors have in game development. This reflects other industry stories, of course. For example, theSAG-AFTRA strikes that ended in JulyThey should all, by and large, be treated like Roger Craig Smith here.
Running Short on Time
Every member of the gaming media and game developers around the world knows the feeling of "running out of time." Deadlines and production concerns are everywhere, and Techland understood that it needed to deliver.Dying Light: The BeastSooner rather than later. That initial leak basically demanded it. Smektała described the early months and first year of the project as "extremely intensive," continuing,
Since we felt we were on schedule and there are Dying Light fans out there who expected us to deliver something soon, we decided to adopt a very focused approach to production. Usually, when you work on a game as expansive as Dying Light: The Beast, you allow yourself some spare time to make mistakes, learn from them, and improve the concept through that learning. But for The Beast it was different, as we entered the project full of learnings from Dying Light 2: Stay Human and from various ways where it strayed from the original formula.
But there's something very important about this type of production. Techland and many of its developers have 10 years of experience working on this franchise, making it helpful for tackling such a situation. Techland, as a company, has also retained a lot of talent that worked on the original.Dying Lightgames, not even performing layoffsafter canceling two in-development games. Having already established whatDying Lightis,Dying Light: The BeastIt was about taking all the core pillars even further. It was a ton of work, with a lot of changes happening over the span of weeks and months, and its accelerated, rapid-paced work is only possible because of Techland's strengths. Not only does this speak to the importance of talent retention in the industry, but it also comes awfully close to an elephant in the room: the current economic climate surrounding game development.
Smektała didn't just address the elephant; he shot it. "The current economic climate is so harsh," he said, "that for a developer with our experience and history, we owe it to our players and our developers to be very, very focused on what we're doing, fully leveraging all of our previous learnings and insights. I don’t want to say that Dying Light: The Beast is a safe sequel, as we’re doing a number of things that take us outside of our comfort zone—the new environment, so far away from our usual cityscapes; the Beast Mode which clashes with the survival feel of our series—but we’re trying to be very, very considerate with all the decisions we make."
Survive Until 25
In 2024, several funding opportunities for game developers just suddenly disappeared. Layoffs were everywhere. There was a common mantra: "survive until 25" with faith and hope that more opportunities would open up. By and large, it appears that the economic difficulties of this year have completely dashed the idea of "survive until 25" and developers are now just "taking licks until 26." Meanwhile, the gaming media landscape is being shaken up considerably, with the AI-pocalypse consistently presenting new challenges and entire sites falling to the whims of search engines. The challenges that Smektała refers to are industry-wide challenges, and yet they persist.
As do many members of the media, as do many developers around the world, and that raises a certain question: why? We share humble origins. We share our reliance and cooperation on each other. We share the same challenges and hardships. But why do we keep going? The answer was woven into every wordTechlandDevelopers said to me. Read closely and you'll feel it.
Dying Light: The Beast is Techland's Zombie Expertise on Full Display
Dying Light: The BeastBrings players back in control of Kyle Crane after he escapes 13-year captivity at the hands of the Baron. There is a new setting,Castor Woods, which is much more rural compared to the cityscapes of past games, but the keyDying Lightpillars are all there. The most important learning fromDying Light 2, according to Smektała, "was not to be afraid of creating a demanding, challenging experience. That's why we made nights so scary, parkour so grounded, and combat so physical and balanced toward survival."
Kyle Crane is Back
In the years afterDying Light'S Following DLC, many fans have clamored to know more of Kyle's fate. He wasn't immediately popular, but his grounded, familiar elements (a classic action movie hero) combined with a touch of humanity grew on fans over time. So much so that it's easy to venture a guess that the fate of Kyle Crane is the question Smektała and Techland have had to dance around the most in the past 10 years. His coming back, however, was always a foregone conclusion. Techland always wanted to bring him back, and when asked whyThe Beastit was the right time to do so, Smektała explained,
Is there a better way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Dying Light than to have the original Hero of Harran returning?
However, Kyle has changed, the technology has grown, and times have shifted. Bringing Kyle back was much easier said than done; "it actually deserves its own talk at a game dev conference," Smektała said.Dying Light: The BeastIt is a first-person game, meaning players do not see Kyle from moment to moment. Techland began by looking at the original animations from the first game, updating them to the reality of 2025 and adding new movements to convey his changes. He is more brutal in his attacks, he is more experienced in his movements, but his age must also be reflected with every breath. Then, of course, the "simplest" way to showcase more of this new and changed Kyle was to create third-person cutscenes where players can see him in full.
Seeing Kyle Crane in third-person, of course, required Techland to present Kyle in greater detail than ever before, representing not only his in-universe age but the hardships of a decade inBaron's captivity. This process was as fun as you'd expect, with Smektała telling me,
The process of creating an older Kyle was actually quite fun as we sketched out hundreds of concept arts, trying to explore and find out how far we could go with any changes, while still keeping Kyle strong, powerful, and not 'too daddy.' We had fat belly Kyle, receding hairline Kyle, sometimes just for laughs, but all to find the perfect balance. Of course, these concept arts are kept locked in our vault, and no one will ever see them. Kyle is a hero, and no one needs to see him in oversized boxer shorts and stained tank top, right?
I feel like The People deserve this concept art, Smektała.
There was also, at one point, another pass at concept work meant to find the monster in Kyle Crane. Part of this is communicated through his bracer and tainted eye, while there are also connections to the "old Kyle" through his watch and Jade's bracelet. It's an age-old concept: the old me vs. the new me, the old Kyle vs. the new Kyle. And while he ultimately still retains his good guy gland, no one escapes captivity and experimentation unchanged. It made Kyle, to some degree, a worse person and less of a person. He is part survivor and always has been, but there's a new part to him: the beast. But he'snot the only monster in Castor Woods.
Dying Light: The Beast Baron
The Castor Woods is filled with deadly enemies, from the simplest zombie to the most disturbed Chimera, and yet none may compare to The Baron. In a priorGame Rant interview, Smektała described The Baron as a James Bond villain, with the team focusing on someone who is as important as Kyle Crane (007) and charismatic, with something special about the way they look, talk, or think. In some ways, The Baron may even symbolize what a broken Kyle Crane, one who somehow lost the remnants of his humanity, would look like. The Baron was further described as "emotionless" along with other key details:
He thinks, but he doesn't really feel. He considers everything based on reasoning, on logic, and on facts, and he basically removes the human factor altogether. I think that's what makes him interesting and surprising for players because, when we look at other human beings, we expect them to factor emotions into their thinking. The Baron doesn't really have that. Everything is pure logic. Everything is calculated.
Crane and The Baron: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Sobierajska also specified that The Baron, as a good antagonist, is designed to complement the protagonist in some way. How exactly that manifests remains to be seen, but they represent opposing forces in a changed world. Sobierajska even hinted that their desires might be similar, but whether or not that's true remains to be seen. After all, their relationship is a bit complicated. It had to be layered so thatDying Light: The Beastwasn't just anotheropen-world revenge story, even while revenge is at the heart of the narrative. As Sobierajska explained,
[T]heir relationship - that's a bit more complicated. Kyle is deeply motivated by his need for revenge. To be fair, revenge is always a tricky choice. While it can create dramatic tension right from the start, it also comes with consequences for the protagonist. Let’s face it - revenge is a universal theme, but if it's not handled carefully, it can make the hero seem unsympathetic or even ruthless. That's why it was important to add additional layers to the relationship between Baron and Kyle. These layers allow the player to see their connection in a more complex light and, in the end, question who the real "beast" in the story is. We can't wait for our players to discover that as they play the game.
Ensuring that revenge as a motive doesn't fall flat also means that there have to be more forces at play. If it were just The Baron and Kyle in Castor Woods, that would be a different story. But Castor Woods is home to many living, not just the dead, and at least one of them joins up with Kyle: Olivia. She is effectively a sidekick, the Felix Leiter to Kyle Crane's 007, and her story is just as important. Without going into spoilers, Sobierajska said,
Olivia, on the other hand, plays a different role in the story. On one level, she provides practical help, such as information, which is typical for a sidekick character. But she also has her own story (which players will be able to uncover). That's actually even more important, especially when you consider Kyle's revenge-driven arc. If you don't layer the story, it can feel flat or make the protagonist unlikable. By exploring themes like revenge and sorrow through different characters, you can create a more nuanced approach. In this context, Olivia becomes a kind of mirror for Kyle. Despite experiencing her own share of terrible events, she remains vulnerable and compassionate, showing that there's more than one way to navigate this brutal post-apocalyptic reality.
Crane will certainly meet many other citizens of Castor Woods as well, but those won't be his main source of companionship. In the wild, there's only one group interested in being friends with Kyle Crane: The undead. Fans can expect zombies, Volatiles, and Chimeras at various stages of their playthroughs, where Techland sought not to reinvent the wheel, but to elevate all of the genre's classics.
The Ultimate Zombie Experience
While many games are all about "innovation," sometimes for the sake of "innovation," that's not the goal withzombies inDying Light: The Beast. Techland wantsDying LightTo be the go-to zombie game, the ultimate zombie experience, THE zombie video game franchise. As such, Smektała explained the goal wasn't to make them different, but to make them iconic: "Therefore, we don't want to reinvent the genre—at least not yet—we want to make sure we hit all the classic points expected by the fans of zombie fiction. That's why we have slow zombies, fast zombies, mutated zombies, night zombies, etc."
Instead of reinventing the wheel of zombie types, Techland focuses on the gruesome horrors of their design and behaviors, to ensure that their zombies are truly terrific rather than coming across as cartoonish. There are a lot of subtleties there, but Smektała's advice is to "look at how ferocious your zombies are, how determined they are to get to the player, and try to convey that as strongly as possible using all the means possible." Indeed, any fan can easily determine the difference between a regular biter and a Volatile, as their screams during thenighttime experience ofDying Light: The Beastrely on a decade of players experiencing the thrill of the dark. ButDying Light: The Beastthey do bring in Chimeras as these monstrous new boss fights. They, although not as silly as dad bod Kyle Crane, underwent a few conceptual iterations. As Smektała explained,
They're mostly seen in the Chimeras, and we went through a number of designs to find something we liked. At one point, they were walking tools of destruction, with actual weapons "merged" with their bodies. We had them presented as real victims of experimentation, still wearing torn lab clothes; as always in the pre-production phase, the imagination was wild. Yet in the end, we decided to focus on something really scary—the body horror—and here the human anatomy books proved to be the most valuable inspiration.
And, of course, this brings us to the crux ofDying Light: The Beast—the gameplay. Players will have to utilize abilities, melee weapons, ranged weapons, tools, and Beast Mode to fight and kill these enemies, or they will have to rely on their inner Beast and feet to flee from and survive them. Day or night, but especially at night, Castor Woods is a dangerous place.
Kyle Crane is Half-Survivor and Half-Beast in Narrative AND Gameplay
In general, Smektała discussed the enemy improvements that fans should expect fromDying Light: The Beastgameplay, outlining three key details.
- First of all, we looked at our existing enemy archetypes and introduced a number of tweaks based on our own observations and player feedback from previous games. Volatiles got their senses rebalanced to make their roaming and sniffing more fair to players. Spitters' attacks are better feedbacked, with higher clarity. Biters are tougher, standing firm when hit. There are a number of examples for this set of improvements, and all of them are aimed at targeting and upgrading the part of the experience known to players.
- Second, we looked at the firearms and how they factor into the gameplay. This means we added another layer of behaviors to our enemies, both zombie and human, to make their reactions meaningful and properly balanced towards a player who uses guns. We also created a complex logic for our shooting human enemies, looking at things like group behaviors, taking cover, and mixing firearm use with other accessories (e.g. grenades).
- Third, we introduce the Chimeras, big, hulking enemies (with some twists!) created by Baron, who are our way of introducing more boss battles to the game. The whole package of Dying Light: The Beast enemies is a nice mix of proven, improved, and new.
Not Your Grandpa's Weapons in Dying Light: The Beast
Players will be able to use several melee weapons inDying Light: The Beast, my favorite so far is the simple shovel. The blood and gore have been improved tenfold, so much so that I was constantly (and pleasantly) distracted by it during mypreview ofDying Light: The Beast. I seriously enjoyed looking at the damage I was capable of doing to zombies, and while I had access to a simple gun pretty early on, I wasn't there for safe combat.
Noises Make Great Distractions
Of course, at some point, I will use a better ranged weapon post-release, and Smektała described the latter options as not "your 'old war veteran grandpa' guns." Discussing a few examples, Smektała said,
We're introducing the flamethrower for close-combat zombie frying—a classic, iconic zombie fiction weapon which, for some reason, we didn't have yet. We're introducing a grenade launcher, great for bigger zombie hordes and encounters with Baron's army. And we're having a sawblade launcher, a great, portable, gory tool that allows you to launch spinning saw blades that cut enemy limbs in an instant. I guess we're as hungry for Half-Life 3 as any other player on the planet!
Survival Parkour in Dying Light: The Beast
When the sawblade launcher and trusty shovel fail, all Kyle Crane has are his own two feet and hands. Dropkicks inDying Light: The Beastare one of gaming's purest pleasures, but sometimes, Crane will have to flee to survive. Smektała, then, outlined what fans expect fromTechland's signature parkour(which is obviously a key pillar of the upcoming game).
- We use parkour to deliver on the promise of 'go anywhere, climb anything' that we gave players in the first game. Our goal back then was to break any walls in the game world, give players the chance to truly go wherever they want, and the chance to peek behind any wall that they see.
- Second, we use parkour to squeeze more gameplay into every second that players spend on the game. In most other games, traversal is a simple act of pushing the left stick forward, maybe making some course corrections from time to time. In Dying Light, traversal is gameplay, and our movement system keeps players constantly engaged. It's actually quite a spectacle to see someone playing Dying Light. They're so much in the zone they play the game with their whole body, sitting on the edge of the seat and leaning forward with each jump. No other game really gives you that.
- Third, we want players to feel almost like they are parkouring themselves. That's why we present parkour in FPP. That's why we spend so much time on little details that highlight the physical connection between the player character and the geometry around, or underneath, him. Yes, there are more and more games that incorporate parkour in their gameplay loops, but no one focuses on these three areas at the same time.
Survive the Night in Dying Light: The Beast
The environments of Castor Woods are deadly during the day, but the night is an entirely different story. Surviving the night becomes the goal, and at times, it can feel like a far-reaching one. Lemaire said that "night is there to remind you that you are still prey" and described the gameplay changes as a "transition from a survival action experience to aHorror stealth experience." Smektała also added,
Since the start of the series, our goal was to create an entire 'night experience,' not just a darker version of the regular one that you get during the day. We were joking that we're creating a '2-in-1' type of game, but actually, these jokes hold a lot of merit. Both the day and the night parts of the Dying Light experience play differently, use a lot of different rules, and they really do change how you feel about your presence in the world, how vulnerable or fragile you feel, how you think, and what decisions you make as you play. In The Beast, we're again helped by the new environment which adds a new, exciting shade to the experience. Our players are used to nights in the cities, but a night in the forest or a night in the swamps—even if it uses the same rules and mechanics—feels completely different.
When asked what they wouldn't change about the nighttime experience if they could, Lemaire mentioned the change of pace, the duality between day and night, and Smektała cited the dread of the upcoming night: "The scariness of the night works not only because it's full of dangerous enemies that can kill you with one swing, but it's also because we're building up anticipation for that moment to happen. The sounds fade out, the sky gets darker, the zombies pause for a few precious minutes, the watch beeps... and then you already know something bad is about to happen."
X-Ray Vision
Zombie combat, parkour, and the nighttime experience are the key pillars that define aDying Lightgame, and through them,Dying Light: The BeastAlso defines itself as a threequel. But there's a lot more under the hood, with developers discussing the wide range of features present in the game.
Dying Light: The Beast Feature List
At the end of that pre-production period, everyone at the studio understood that what we're looking at is the next game in the series, one that we were fully ready to pour all of our hearts into.
He said Why Dying Light: The Beast Features a Linear Narrative
We wanted Dying Light: The Beast to set the canon for the universe, solving some unresolved threads from previous games and setting the series for the future; that's why we decided to go with a linear story, over which we have full control. This doesn't mean we won't do a branching storyline in the future, though if we do, I'm sure we'll use everything that we've learned from Dying Light 2: Stay Human to make the choices more impactful, clear, and direct.
Lemaire on Survival in Dying Light: The Beast
The main intention for Dying Light: The Beast is to make players experience more of the 'survival' aspect of the franchise. Crafting plays a big role, and scavenging for loot is as dangerous as it is useful to keep pushing forward. Melee weapons can break, and ammunition is scarce. Players can find vehicles in working condition, but eventually, they will run out of fuel, pushing them to prepare ahead and look for opportunities in old cars or gas stations. And of course, the story also leans into themes related to surviving in this dangerous world, maintaining a community of humans seeking to do more than just survive.
Sobierajska on What to Expect From Dying Light: The Beast's Story
That's a tough question. I'd say players shouldn't expect clear-cut answers about good and evil, heroes and villains. In extreme situations, people make choices they never thought they'd make under normal circumstances. I believe it was Aristotle who said we should be careful while judging someone's actions without fully understanding external factors and circumstances that led to them.
Smektała on the "Weird" of Dying Light: The Beast
I also like how weird we allowed ourselves to be in some of the side narratives and missions. Castor Woods is a special place, a beautiful valley, cut off from the world, and strange things have been happening here for decades. Even though the game takes place many years after an outbreak of a deadly virus that brought a zombie apocalypse to the whole world, there are lots of secrets to discover. The Kyle story is there and it's obviously the star of the show, but I think this is also a part of Dying Light DNA to deliver some left-field, out-of-the-box adventures on the side. Remember Gazi or Tolga & Fatin? The weirdness, the goofiness, the unexpected is still there!
Guérin on Dying Light: The Beast's Vehicles
Dying Light is known for its parkour, but sometimes it's better to move faster using the roads and off-road. As players play, they'll find abandoned Ranger cars scattered around. They are perfect for crossing long distances, outrunning Volatiles, or hauling heavy stuff when needed. But players have to remember that fuel can run dry when they need it most, cars can get damaged by running over zombies...and a roaring engine can bring a whole lot of trouble. To stay on the move, it is a good idea to search wreckages and canisters for fuel.
Lemaire on Dying Light: The Beast's Guns and Firearms
For Dying Light: The Beast, we consider them powerful tools coming with trade-offs. The first one is about the scarcity of ammunition. Finding ammo requires players to focus on certain types of activities; it does not come for free. The second is about the noise. Using firearms in the open may attract more zombies, which in the end might result in players using more ammunition than they would have liked for a given encounter. For us, it is important to allow players to expand the amount of toys at their disposal, while making sure we don’t turn the game into a shooter.
Lemaire on Beast Mode
There's a nice narrative explanation for it, but in simple 'game terms,' Kyle kills Chimeras, which gives him Beast skill points, which he can spend on new Beast abilities to use in Beast Mode. We have both combat and parkour abilities to support our core pillars. The agency players have over Beast Mode also evolves. At the beginning, it is something Kyle cannot control. By harnessing the DNAs of Chimeras, he will eventually be able to, changing the whole perspective on how players will use it.
She mocked the Co-Op Mode
Looking at historical data, about 25-30% of Dying Light players are playing the game in co-op. This means that even if we focus most on the immersive, narrative-driven, single-player survival horror part of the experience, there’s a very significant part of our community that’s interested in a more free-for-all, 'let's have fun with friends on a Friday night' approach to the game. We’re all for that, as many of us were raised on classic co-op experiences from the X360 era like Army of Two. There’s definitely something special about facing a horde of zombies with your buddies.
She mocked Castor Woods' Map Design
It's actually a very long process - probably not overtly complex, definitely not as much as when we were working on the first game - but still one that requires cooperation of a number of disciplines. The programmers collaborate with level designers to come up with the correct metrics, and as soon as they settle on them, they become the foundation on which the world is built. The level artists apply their work on the levels created by level designers, but they also have to abide by a number of rules that tell them where and how to put the decorations to not break the parkour flow. The QA team relentlessly tests these environments to make sure all connections work, there are no unexpected obstacles on players' paths, and sometimes goes back to gameplay programmers with requests for some code changes. This is an iterative process, one that lasts throughout the whole production, but we're getting better and better at it.
She mocked at Graphical and Visual Enhancements
Dying Light: The Beast brings a number of technical advancements, mostly focused on the feeling of immersion, and lighting plays a very important part in that. We rewrote a huge part of our rendering code for lighting and added some missing features - e.g., sun moving on the horizon. Combined with current-gen solutions for material rendering, it makes the world much more believable. Oh, and the weather system got an overhaul as well, as we now support more different weather states than before. Wait till you see the foggy weather in the swamps.
Tarnacka-Polito on Castor Woods' Biomes
In Dying Light: The Beast, we wanted to create a world that feels rich, alive, and full of different places to explore. The map offers a wide range of environments from a lively town to dense forests, from steep hills to riverbanks, and from swamps to farmlands or an old industrial park. The town is built on sloping terrain, which makes it very different from the areas of Villedor in Dying Light 2: Stay Human. We wanted to make sure the environment feels dense and diverse.
- The tourist town of Castor Woods.It was once a lively, busy place, surrounded by beautiful mountains, forests, and a stunning national park. People used to come here to relax, go skiing, and enjoy nature.
- The National ParkThis vast, forested area is filled with scenic viewpoints and rock formations inspired by the, among others, real-world Table Mountains National Park in Poland. You'll come across mountain lodges, picnic areas, and the park rangers' headquarters. I highly recommend taking a moment to read the information boards you'll come across - they offer a lot of insight you don't want to miss.
- The Industrial ParkSeveral factories once operated here, providing jobs to the local community. Even though some were abandoned before the pandemic, buildings—silos, warehouses, and production halls—still stand. They offer fantastic opportunities for exploration and looting.
- Workers' DistrictLike many towns built around the turn of the 20th century near factories, worker housing was constructed nearby. Simple residential blocks surrounded by playgrounds, grocery stores, and green spaces for recreation.
- The FarmlandsInspired by the traditional European countryside. Here, residents produced and sold local specialties to visiting tourists. Although this area is now partially flooded, you can still see how carefully crafted each farmhouse and its surroundings are.
- Historic Villa DistrictWith its unique architecture, wealthier residents of Castor Woods lived here. Players will find a few hotels and guesthouses there. Every home has a unique garden and small details that hint at who used to live there, which was a lot of fun to create.
Smektała Confirms Post-Launch Support Plans for Dying Light: The Beast
Right now we're focusing 100% on launch, and we're trying not to distract ourselves with anything that will happen post-release. That being said, we already have some ideas, even plans already in motion, but we'll verify these plans when the game launches and we hear from our players where their appetites lie. But I'm confident Techland will stay being Techland and we'll continue doing what worked for us in the past.
The Passion of Dying Light: The Beast is the Passion of Us
The answer was hidden in every word Techland developers said to me. Read closely and you'll feel it.
To bring all these moving parts together, Smektała expressed his hope for the entry and for the future of the franchise:
I hope Dying Light: The Beast will be a good, strong exclamation mark, making a statement for the 10th anniversary of the series. We already have ideas for future Dying Light games and projects, so we hope that Dying Light: The Beast—along with both previous games—will form a very strong foundation for these upcoming initiatives.
And in those words, as well as every quote above, you can feel the beating heart ofDying Light: The BeastHis story, the story of the industry, our story: passion.
Passion is what makes games. Passion is why we play games. The industry's humble origins are rooted in a passion for fun, despite its relatively cold origins in computer science.Dying Light: The BeastHis originsare rooted in fun, despite its less-than-ideal leak. It is the passion of the people of this industry who make games possible, with Roger Craig Smith's passion highlighted by his return and Techland's highlighted by the intensive development ofDying Light: The Beast. And it is because of that passion that this industry perseveres, just as Kyle Crane perseveres despite the tragedy, just as every developer perseveres despite the horrors, just as everyone in every tangent of this industry perseveres despite it all. Perhaps everyone is "taking licks till 26"—perhaps, unfortunately, a delay carries it until 2027 or beyond (fingers crossed with hopes not)—but it is a passion, a story like Techland andDying Light: The Beastthat represents the best and strongest among us.
And there's no doubt that, comeDying Light: The Beasts releaseOn September 19, Techland hopes that players feel this passion.
