Dying Light: The Beast, much like other titles in the Dying Light franchise, will feature an open world that players can freely explore. Speaking about the game in a recent interview with GamesRadar, franchise director Tymon Smektala said that the most enjoyable thing about an open world game is rarely the size of the world; rather, it’s about how fun it is to explore the world.

“Open worlds are not about scale.” said Smektala. “They’re about your feeling of being there. So we can create an open-world that’s maybe not as expansive, but if it’s hand-crafted, if it feels real, the player’s satisfaction of being in that world is much bigger.”

Smektala brings up how other open world games tend to have “hubs of activities”, but there rarely tends to be anything in between these hubs. With Dying Light: The Beast, developer Techland is trying to avoid this type of game structure. Smektala said that “we were trying to make Dying Light open-world games where you are constantly playing, where you are constantly interacting with the controller, where you’re constantly pushing buttons.”

“Dying Light is probably one of the most dense open-world games on the market,” he said, continuing that the studio wants to make a world “where you are constantly looking around you, where you are constantly in the zone, in the feeling of it all.”

In an earlier interview, Smektala had spoken about how the studio saw itself as an underdog, and how it ended up losing some of the DNA of the Dying Light franchise when it made Dying Light 2 Stay Human. While the game was a commercial success, Smektala admitted that “maybe we made some missteps.”

“Our fans were telling us ‘that’s not it, that’s not what made you so special,’” Smektala said, referring to the studio wanting to provide a more polished AAA experience with Dying Light 2 Stay Human. Ultimately, however, he notes that the studio is now aiming to provide players with both aspects – polish as well as the core Dying Light DNA.

“We want to deliver both,” he said. “We want to deliver the AAA quality, but at the same time, we want to deliver proof that our mojo is not gone, that our mojo is not there, and we know what makes Dying Light, Dying Light. And if players say ‘wow, this feels like Dying Light 1, and it looks so amazing, it’s such a polished game’, then I think we’ll be very, very happy.”

Just last week, Dying Light: The Beast had gotten a new trailer where we got to see the game’s primary setting of Castor Woods. Once a lively, busy tourist town, Castor Woods has fallen quite far in the wake of the zombie outbreak. Along with the town of Castor Woods itself, players will also be able to explore its surrounding areas, including a lush forest in the nearby national park.

Dying Light: The Beast is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on August 22.

Today, Techland announced several Dying Light news as part of the franchise’s 10th anniversary. Events and updates are coming for both games, and the next title, The Beast, is landing this Summer. More unannounced projects are already in the works, and Techland is also preparing board games and a comic series.

To dive into all of that and much more, we had a nice, long chat with Dying Light Franchise Director Tymon Smektała. Keep scrolling to read the transcript; we’ve also embedded today’s episode of the Dying to Know show for those who haven’t watched it yet.

We’ve read the press release, of course, but please give us an overview of the key announcements today.

Tymon Smektała: We are actually having a very special day today at Techland because it’s the 10th anniversary of the release of the original Dying Light. It’s a series with quite a long history. Not all the games are lucky enough and fortunate enough to be able to celebrate that.

In today’s stream, we talk and reminisce a little bit about where we are with the franchise. The celebrations are basically packed with a lot of activations for fans. All of this starts today in both games. For Dying Light, we decided to go with a medley of the most liked, the most respected, and the favorite events from the history of that game. There’s HyperMode, Super-Crane, all the stuff that players have come to love over those 10 years. Then next week, when we are at the same time celebrating the third anniversary of Dying Light 2, we’ll start an anniversary celebration for that with a set of bounties, goals for players to achieve that will provide them with rewards that refer back to the whole series.

Of course, we want to use this as an opportunity for players to check out Dying Light if they haven’t already done so. So, both games have cool promotions on all platforms. At the same time, we are also announcing that the series so far has reached 45 million players. It’s something that we are very proud of. And we are also giving players a small update on our work forward for The Beast. We focus this period on the celebration of the anniversary, so we don’t go into much detail regarding The Beast, but the stream will give players a very nice look behind the scenes on how we work on the game where we are. There will be some Easter eggs hidden for our community so they can discover that and see how the work progresses on the beast. We are also telling players that we have a couple of things planned outside of videogames, like board games. We are even announcing some new comic initiatives, but the main message is that Dying Light is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a series and that we feel strong about its future. We stick to our plan of growing the franchise and hope that one day, Dying Light will become the go-to zombie game for players.

I also read that you’re planning to release an update for the first game.

Tymon Smektała: That’s part of the celebrations. Players will actually get two things from us. The first one is a kind of celebratory anniversary bundle where you can dress according to the occasion and also paint your buggy from Dying Light The Following in the same way. And yes, we are also preparing an update that will squeeze a little bit more from our graphics engine. It will also include the remastered soundtrack by Paweł Błaszczak. Don’t expect a complete overhaul, but there will be a small update where we look at various areas of the game to try to squeeze a little bit more out of it, like increasing the resolution of textures here and there, improving the lighting, especially in dialogues, but it’s a set of tweaks here and there that will just give the game a slightly nicer look.

When is it coming?

Tymon Smektała: It will arrive soon. We’re not revealing an exact date because this is basically a tech achievement to work with an engine that already has its years. So we didn’t want to jump the gun too early, but it will happen very soon. We just want to make sure that when we announce the exact date, it will be delivered on that date. I think that’s the best answer I can give you without kind of having to say, we missed the date for a few days, but it’s going to happen soon.

‘We are also preparing a Dying Light update that will squeeze a little bit more from our graphics engine. It will also include the remastered soundtrack by Pavo Bashak. Don’t expect a complete overhaul, but there will be a small update where we look at various areas of the game to try to squeeze a little bit more out of it, like increasing the resolution of textures here and there, improving the lighting, especially in dialogues, but it’s a set of tweaks here and there that will just give the game a slightly nicer look.’

Looking at the new Dying Light roadmap that you put in the press release, you confirmed that The Beast is coming in the Summer. I guess you must be very close to finishing the game. Is it content complete yet? Is it just polishing at this point?

Tymon Smektała: Yes. One small thing that I said at today’s anniversary is that we have basically finished recording the voice lines. We’ll have all of them in the game within a few days. We are definitely in a stage where the game is complete, and we are just trying to look at all of its areas and polish as much as possible. I would say we are mostly focusing right now on general quality and seeing how we can improve the look at this particular location or this particular set of enemy animations. We are also at the stage of making a proper, final balance pass on everything, so it’s shaping up to be a really nice experience. We still have a few playtest rounds ahead of us, so we’ll see what will come from that, but I don’t expect anything more than maybe another set of tweaks, pulling the knobs here and there to make sure that everything is ready for the launch.

You said Summer, but that’s three months. Could we narrow it down a bit more, like early Summer or late Summer?

Tymon Smektała: I don’t want to answer that question. I think that at Techland, we have a history of being a little bit optimistic and saying days that we then had to move a little. Every developer has that. The game will definitely be released in the Summer, but you’ll have to wait a little bit longer for the final date.

Alessio Palumbo: Okay. I had to try. You’re still working on Dying Light 2 as well, right?

Tymon Smektała: Yes, of course, absolutely. The roadmap also reveals our plans for this year. We are definitely sticking to the promise of supporting the game for five years. We are moving strong in the third year. I think we have found a rhythm that is comfortable both for us as developers and for our community. We have four big events each year. In every quarter of the year, there’s a nice big event inside Dying Light 2, which brings new activities, new rewards, new cosmetic items, and at the same time, in between, we release slightly smaller updates.

New weapon types are coming. We plan to introduce a set of technical improvements mostly inspired by our work on The Beast. I would say we definitely managed to improve our tech for The Beast, so we plan to bring back some of those improvements to Dying Light 2 at some point this year. In the second half of next month, on February 19, we plan to release an update that will bring the Tower Raid. It’s a co-op mode, which we worked on over the course of last year, but this time, it’s going to stay as a permanent addition.

It’s something quite unique for us. We created it as a response to players’ requests and we plan to work on this and develop it further. We’re waiting for feedback from our community. We are also introducing a set of improvements to our prologue and the initial hours of the game. We are making the story and player progression a little bit more seamless because we have realized that there are a couple of bumps, some tricky moments in the initial hours of the game. Since it still brings a lot of new players, we wanted to ease it out a little bit, make it more engaging and flowing more naturally for players.

We also plan to look again at and energize our content creators. As you know, Dying Light 2 is one of the unique games where we have released our tools for players to create their own maps and, at the same time, we made those maps easily accessible both on PC and consoles. I think there are maybe three, four, five games that really do it. We have some ideas on how we can direct and help our content creators to create premium content for the UGC part. When I say premium, of course, what I mean is high quality, not paid, because this is a part of the game that will stay absolutely free forever.

Going back to the Tower Raid, I think it’s also worth noting that over the course of last year, we gave players access to it on two occasions for a few weeks. The goal was to treat it as an early access, open beta type of thing. We wanted to gather feedback and players’ expectations. The permanent version of the Tower Raid will be an answer to that. It will be accessible from the main menu, so you don’t have to be in the open world to access it.

Players will get to choose one of four characters with their own progression trees, skills and roles. Since it’s a roguelite experience, it will change with each attempt, giving players access to different floors, different enemy combinations, sets of mutators, and so on. If they succeed, the loot they earn will then be usable in the classic open world part of Dying Light 2.

What kind of co-op improvements are you making to the game outside of the Tower Raid mode?

Tymon Smektała: I would say those are mostly focused on technical stuff and making it easier for players to connect. Dying Light 2 was never intended or envisioned as a fully online game. We realized that we missed some features on the matchmaking front. It’s a little bit harder, it takes a few too many steps to connect with your friends to create a group and play together. Post-launch, Dying Light 2 has received more and more content that supports, promotes, or is just fun to play with your friends or in co-op groups, so we wanted to make sure that players would be able to connect more easily. We also looked at the user interface to make sure that it’s easier to understand what’s happening to other players, where they are, and what kind of level they are.

We feel that this is something that we want to explore. We realized that we don’t have as many things to play for players in co-op as probably would make that form of playing the game even more popular, so we’ll be looking at this side of the game for any future ideas that we’ll have.

‘We feel that this is something that we want to explore. We realized that we don’t have as many things to play for Dying Light 2 players in co-op as probably would make that form of playing the game even more popular, so we’ll be looking at this side of the game for any future ideas that we’ll have.

You mentioned Community Maps. What kind of improvements are you going to make to that area of the game?

Tymon Smektała: I think they are already quite integrated and very accessible thanks to our partnership with mod.io, which delivers those super cool tools that make access to maps created by the community in a very easy way. We managed to have them available both on PC and consoles, and especially the consoles part is something that requires a little bit more effort. Not every developer is willing to go in that direction, but for us, it was very important to keep our community intact. The community maps are already available on PC and consoles, and the map creators have access to all of those players when they make their creations. Now, we are growing and improving our relations with the content creators, talking to them every day and trying to understand what kind of features they are missing and what kind of additional options, abilities, and opportunities they would like to have on the editor side.

We have a team that is trying to deliver that to them as quickly as possible. But at the same time, we realize that maybe we could help them a little by coming up with ideas and directions for what they create. Aside from a set of technical editor side tweaks that will make creating maps easier and also iron out some of the kinks that happen when you download the maps, we also want to support the most talented map creators specifically and individually to make sure that they are able to deliver their vision. This way, we hope that the maps that they will create will just get better.

We have had a lot of discussions with a lot of those people where they say, okay, we want to make this kind of map. We have this idea for it, but we were able to make it only up to this point because we are missing a feature or two to fully realize our vision. What we intend to do this year with Dying Light 2 mods is to get more intimate with those creators and deliver them the features that they need to fulfill their visions. For example, we have a map which is called Stadium. It is a set of sports events that use our mechanics. It’s a great map, but when you start playing it, you quickly realize that it misses some features. There’s a football match that you can try to play, with two goals and a ball, and you can play it with your friends, but then there’s no mechanic that would allow you to count the score, so we talked to the content creator, and he told us that he didn’t have the features needed to do this.

With this new approach, we’ll look at a map with such potential and say, “Okay, let us help you, and we will deliver you a solution that will allow you to count the goals.” That’s just an example to present the mindset that we’ll have for this year when working with the most talented map creators from the community.

There are also new firearms and melee weapons on the way. Can you share something more about those?

Tymon Smektała: I think we don’t want to kind of spoil the surprise, but definitely, this year will bring a number of new melee weapons and firearms. When you look at the roadmap and you see new firearms and new melee weapons, you can expect new items within the types that have already been established. And yes, we’ll also add some new weapon types, both in the melee and the firearms sides, that we didn’t have before.

In general, are you happy with how firearms have been integrated into Dying Light 2? Because I know that was a big sticking point.

Tymon Smektała: I think we have managed to do that in a way that makes sense both for us and for our community. We feel that our implementation achieves one thing, which is actually a challenge for a game like Dying Light, where one of the pillars is first-person melee combat. We chose this as something that makes us unique, standing out on the market.

Of course, we still think of new ways we can develop it and what more we can do with it, but Dying Light is a game built on melee combat and bringing firearms to it is a design challenge about how you want to implement them into the game so they don’t overpower your core gameplay mechanic, which is first person melee combat.

And I think we did actually a nice job on it with various design decisions on how often players get access to bullets. What’s the value of one bullet? Does it make sense to use it in every situation? Maybe not. Then also, with additional mechanics that are well embedded into the worldbuilding where if you make noise, you wake up the zombies, making it always a double-edged sword. Then, it supports and builds up on our other gameplay pillar, which is parkour and being able to traverse with great agility. We created this loop where it’s okay for you to use firearms, but you cannot stay in that place for long because the zombies will come and maybe when they do, you will have to use your parkour to run away or maybe even parkour to find a better shooting position.

Of course, we had firearms in the first game, so we have some experience in that regard. I think we’ll be using both of those experiences in The Beast. I think the relation between melee weapons and firearms is even stronger in that game because the firearms are introduced to the player from the beginning. It’s not like we did in Dying Light 2 where it was a game without firearms and only at some point did we add firearms to this already built mechanism. With The Beast, it was slightly easier because we knew from the start that, of course, we’d have firearms there. We are also increasing our range of firearms in that game. So far, we have mentioned that we’ll have a grenade launcher. We have also shown a bit of flamethrower, and that’s not all, as we have more announcements coming on that front.

You also revealed that the franchise has a number of unannounced projects in the works.

Tymon Smektała: Yes, we wanted to use the anniversary occasion to affirm to our players that the future is bright, and we’re definitely not stopping here. But we’ll talk about those projects after the release of Dying Light The Beast because there’s no denying that currently, our focus is on Dying Light the Beast and sticking to the support of Dying Light 2. So, we just wanted to give this little kind of heads-up to players that the future is bright, and we have ambitions for it.

The franchise is going beyond games with board games and stuff like that, but did you look into TV or movie adaptations, which are increasingly active in the gaming industry? Was there ever anything that maybe could have happened or could still happen for the IP?

Tymon Smektała: Absolutely. We are still looking at all of our options here. As you can imagine, anything in this kind of glossy Hollywood area takes a little bit more time than the creation of a board game or a comic. So, we are still considering our options. Nothing to announce at this stage, but this is an area where we are constantly having conversations and discussions about trying different approaches and seeing what we can do. Definitely, our belief is that it has the potential to take off outside of games. I think that with 28 Years Later, we’ll see a slight renaissance of the zombie setting in pop culture, and I think it makes a lot of sense for Dying Light to also be a part of it. But once again, there is nothing to announce at this moment.

I guess you probably can’t answer this, but I’m going to try anyway. A couple of years ago, you revealed that Techland was working on another IP, a fantasy franchise. It’s been a while since that new franchise has been discussed. Could you confirm if it’s still being made?

Tymon Smektała: Well, my role is Dying Light franchise director. I will let my friends speak about their project. I can answer all the questions about Dying Light, but I will not steal the shine from my friends at Techland. So, nothing to comment on this topic.

It’s just that, while I love zombie games, I also dearly love fantasy. So, it’s something I would love to see eventually.

Tymon Smektała: Same here.

Finger crossed. Just a final question. The Nintendo Switch 2 has been announced, at long last. Are you looking into supporting it for Dying Light 2: Stay Human and/or The Beast? The first game was eventually released on the Switch.

Tymon Smektała: It’s too early to comment on this because we have just basically learned the basics about the console, at least publicly. The only thing I can say right now is that I’m waiting for the orders on the Nintendo Switch 2 to open so I can secure my own version of it right away. But nothing to announce on this topic officially at this moment.

OK, fair enough. Is there anything you’d like to add?

Tymon Smektała: I would like to say that it has really been an amazing journey for us and I think none of us at Techland realized that 10 years after releasing Dying Light we’d still be talking about the game and it would still be such a popular series which really left its mark the zombie genre in the open world survival horror genres. We really feel proud about our work on the game and the series, but we also understand that the series wouldn’t be where it is today if not for our community and the players, 45 million of them who have spent their time with the Dying Light titles. So, if I may, I would like to thank all of our community and all the players who have enjoyed Dying Light over the years because we wouldn’t be there without them. And it’s a great honor to be able to deliver at least a slice of entertainment and fun to their lives. It’s an honor for us. It’s a pleasure for us and something that we are very grateful that this could happen.

Thank you for your time.

During The Game Awards 2024, Techland’s Dying Light: The Beast released a new trailer that introduced The Baron, the game’s primary antagonist. The trailer also showed off some of the game’s new setting, Castor Woods, as well as a few new additions to protagonist Kyle Crane’s arsenal. Overall, Dying Light: The Beast seems to be pulling together all the best parts of the franchise, with a touch more horror than past games.

Game Rant recently caught up with Dying Light’s franchise director Tymon Smektala to talk about The Beast. He opened up on some of the inspiration behind The Baron, and how the new game’s setting will affect gameplay. He also touched on the significance of 2025 for Techland and what the future holds for the open-world zombie series. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Related Dying Light: The Beast’s Following Vibes Only Get Stronger with Every Showing As Dying Light: The Beast draws closer to its upcoming release in 2025, its influences from the franchise’s past continue to show with pride.

The Baron is a Formidable Adversary For Dying Light: The Beast’s Kyle Crane

Q: The Baron is going to be a central figure in Dying Light: The Beast. What was the inspiration behind the character?

A: It’s very hard to point to any specific reference, so I can’t say it’s this guy or that guy. I think we were inspired by a lot, maybe not all, but a lot of the classic antagonists from various games and also movies. I think that if I were to point in one direction specifically, I would say Bond villains. We were looking at the James Bond movie series. Usually, they have a central antagonist who is just as important as 007 himself, so we got inspired by that. We tried to create the same vibe of someone who’s definitely bad, definitely a negative character, an antagonist, but also someone who has something interesting, something really peculiar about him, that makes you actually care about the character.

It’s hard to say that Bond villains are ‘likable’, but they are definitely charismatic. Usually, they have something special about them: the way they look, the way they talk, the way they think. We wanted to find something like that. The Baron is a descendant, the last in a line of very powerful people, a privileged, noble family from the area of Castor Woods. Right before the apocalypse, they were running a big pharma business, so they were into medicine. They were into DNA, etc. When players play the game, they will discover there’s actually quite an extensive background to the character and his family. Players will be able to find out a little bit about what has happened to the family before the game.

He’s quite a character. He’s definitely very brilliant, a great mind, someone that you would like to invite over for dinner, but at the same time, he has an element to him that is quite emotionless. He thinks, but he doesn’t really feel. He considers everything based on reasoning, logic, and 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. That’s what’s interesting.

We didn’t want to reveal The Baron in full yet, but we wanted to give a glimpse of who he is by the actions he performs and by the items he surrounds himself with. In the trailer, you can see classic paintings, actual paintings taken from Europe’s museums. He can do that because he likes art, and he’s so powerful that he can afford these luxury items. There are also some details, like the brush that he has. It’s like his symbol. There’s a little backstory that explains where it comes from in the game. It’s connected to one of his previous family members. This guy has held Kyle Crane captive for 13 years, using his knowledge and resources, but what’s the grand plan of The Baron? That’s something that players will discover in the game.

Q: In The Baron’s speech in the trailer, he references God. He’s also clearly a very scientific guy, and sometimes science and religion can find themselves at complete opposite ends of a person’s beliefs, but it seems like he’s in both camps. Can you talk a little bit about how his motivations are tied to religion and science?

A: I think that’s a very good question, a philosophical one. We don’t delve too much into that in the game though. We don’t want to distract players too much from fighting zombies and surviving, but yes, there are elements of it. If players are into finding details about the characters and getting the full picture, they will find some references to it in the game. When it comes to The Baron, he is always calculating, and from both sides, he just takes things that fit his equations. I don’t want to say he’s not a religious person, but he uses elements taken from religion if they fit his narrative. Then, in the end, he produces the results that he wants. He’s that kind of person.

How Kyle Crane’s Captivity Has Affected Him

Q: Kyle has clearly been exposed to some pretty horrible things whilst being held captive. Could you talk about how that period of time has changed him as a character?

A: He’s bitter, he’s definitely changed, but we wanted to keep that change controllable and manageable. When players start playing the game, they kind of want to get back to where they were with Kyle Crane 10 years ago with the first game. The Beast promises that you will get to play as Kyle Crane, so we couldn’t change him completely. We couldn’t make him a different character. The elements that made Kyle stand out in the first place are still there. He’s still the relatable character that people remember. He comments on things using a kind of common sense, expressing the thoughts of the player, and also his sarcasm is still there. He still has a moral compass, which makes him a person that: if you did something stupid, but you need help, Kyle will help you. Those are the elements of Kyle that we wanted to keep.

On the other hand, of course, he’s changed. He’s a little bit more bitter, especially at the beginning when he’s just out of The Baron’s lab. Then he kind of changes by interacting with other characters. He’s more mature, he has always been like that, but right now, he cuts the bull instantly. He just doesn’t waste time on pointless chatter. If things need to be done, they need to be done. If things need to be said, he says them. I think that’s a visible change in the character. I think this will resonate with players in terms of everything that he does and says. Plus, of course, he’s driven by revenge, especially at the beginning.

There is a guy that was doing bad things to him. And even if, for many of us, the first thing that we would do is run away, Kyle doesn’t. He’s thinking about revenge and also wants some answers to the questions that he has. Why has he been captured? Why has he been experimented upon? What was the goal for that? He wants those answers. He wants revenge, but then he meets people in Castor Woods, people who are living there, and he realizes that there are people who need his help. Maybe there is even more at stake than just The Baron doing something bad to Kyle. It’s maybe more than that.

Q: For Kyle, there seems to be an internal struggle to keep a lid on this beast inside of him. Does that struggle kind of manifest itself in the gameplay at all? Are there mechanics that play into that struggle?

A: We are actually at the stage where the game is put together, and we are balancing and tweaking various aspects. We are having those discussions internally, deciding how far we should go with expressing this in gameplay mechanics and in the narrative. I can’t go into much more right now, but yes, that struggle is there. Kyle gets these powers because of the experiments, and they make him powerful. They allow him to get out of tricky situations more easily, maybe even some that would be impossible for a human to get out of.

Now he can get out of them, but at the same time, he understands this is a gift that he was given without his permission. It’s thanks to the experiments tinkering with his DNA. It’s not easy to accept that it’s just a ‘power up’. There’s more to it, and it’s expressed in the narrative and in gameplay as well. We are just kind of trying to find the balance where it’s felt by players, where it makes sense to players but, at the same time, doesn’t kind of frustrate them by making the character weird or putting some frustrating limitations on gameplay.

Related Dying Light: The Beast Gives Kyle the Oldest and Noblest of Main Character Treatments Dying Light: The Beast brings forth the long-awaited return of protagonist Kyle Crane, and with him, a major main character trope.

Dying Light: The Beast’s Gameplay and Beyond

Q: What new gameplay possibilities does Castor Woods open up for the player?

A: I think, first, those are opportunities for us as developers because this is kind of a new area for us, something that we haven’t tried before, at least not to this extent. We wanted to challenge ourselves a little and create an environment that is a lot different from the classic urban city environments that we usually create but, at the same time, allows us to create a different atmosphere and a different mood. I think I would point to this as the first benefit of having this environment, having a map that has so many forest areas and swamps, for example.

This allows us to push the game a little bit more toward the survival horror vibe and the horror element of what we have always been doing. I think this makes it easier to express that, and we can express that in a stronger way. For example, in an instance where nothing is really happening, you can really soak in the surrounding atmosphere, being alone in the woods at night or being alone in the swamps when the darkness sets in. It’s just the music, it’s just the environment, it’s just the limited visibility. But it instantly puts you in the place where you kind of hesitate to take the next step because you don’t know what’s going to happen. I think that’s the first benefit. For me, it’s the classic way to play. If it’s dark in-game, dim the lights and fully soak in the atmosphere.

Dying Light: The Beast Values Atmosphere as Highly as Parkour

Q: When you’ve got something like a swamp in a game that’s so heavily linked with parkour, that must be really challenging for you. How do you work around these challenges?

A: We challenged ourselves a little bit more with the parkour elements because, in those swamp areas, it’s harder for us to find the sort of geometry that allows you to do those very long sequences of parkour. I think we have allowed ourselves to not have parkour everywhere, to sometimes trade parkour for the atmosphere I mentioned earlier, instead of the rush of jumping over obstacles. But then, on the other hand, I think it also allowed us to find new ways to have parkour in places where it’s not so obvious.

The easiest example I can give is that when there’s a structure that you want to get into, we don’t just open the doors on the first floor for you. You need to use parkour to climb to the location which allows you to climb through a window or to the rooftop entrance, to get inside. I think this is another new thing for the players, where they will all be able to use parkour, not just to kind of run from point A to point B, but use it as an explorer would, to gain access to otherwise out-of-reach places.

How Dying Light: The Beast’s Day and Night Cycle Works

Q: The day and night cycles, on the surface, seem to perfectly complement some of Castor Woods’ areas. It seems tailor-made for them. Are there any new elements to that day and night cycle that are on display in The Beast?

A: I think we have some tricks up our sleeves, but I don’t really want to go into the details yet. I think it will be a big reveal for us, in terms of the new take on the night experience. However, not to overhype this, the fundamentals don’t change. Dying Light: The Beast is still a game that uses the gameplay formula of Dying Light. Of course, it is the most evolved form, but still, the formula is the same. During the day, it’s basically you against zombies, where you fight with them, where you are feeling a little stronger than them, where you have a chance to kind of set the rules of the game by yourself. But then, when night falls, the volatiles come out. The rules change. The dynamics of gameplay change.

It was always very important for us to not just change the visuals, but also change the gameplay. For the night, the dynamics of the night change. It basically goes into a stealth kind of game where you are surrounded by Volatiles, the strongest enemies that we have, enemies that are actually super hard to kill, and for many, many hours, they will be outside the player’s capabilities to kill. To survive, you just need to assume a different mindset and play by the rules set by the Volatiles. The fundamentals will not change, but we are using some new tricks. We’re doing some tweaks here and there to make it a little bit more exciting and definitely more fitting to the environment that we have.

Q: The trailer also features a look at a little bit of new weaponry. Could you talk about some of the new additions to combat and how these will factor into gameplay?

A: Dying Light: The Beast is a game that will be released in the year of our 10th anniversary. It uses all of our experience and refines our gameplay formula, evolving it to the highest point that’s achievable for us at this stage. The same goes for combat. Dying Light’s formula heavily features combat, so we put a lot of focus on this. However, at the same time, we’ve also expanded the player’s arsenal continuously and consistently over the years. So, of course, you will get the usual firearms, ranged weapons, crossbows, etc. At the same time, we want to add to this arsenal even more in The Beast. There are quite a few new toys in production. In preparation, we have so far revealed two: a grenade launcher and a flamethrower.

The flamethrower is a kind of classic fantasy in the zombie genre, maybe in the more pulpy section of it. The feeling of setting zombies on fire with a flamethrower is something super exciting and iconic for the zombie genre. I feel a little bit ashamed that we are only just introducing it now! I think this will be exciting for players. On the other hand, a grenade launcher is like a powerful weapon that you take out when needed, when you are super surrounded, or when there are plenty of zombies in front of you. The cool thing about it is that it supports different types of ammunition. We have shown the regular grenades, but there are also UV grenades that create almost safe zones for the player to hide in. The Volatiles hate UV light, so an explosion like this is bad news for them. It’s not the end of new additions to the arsenal, so please stay tuned for more juicy stuff coming.

Q: Heading into 2025, what should fans expect from Techland in terms of communication and news for The Beast?

A: I cannot spill all the beans, but what I can say is that the next year is going to be quite important for us. Early next year, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Dying Light as a franchise. The first game was released in 2015, so we will be celebrating that. I think the celebration will be the right moment to reveal more of our plans. But yes, we plan to start with the celebration and then we will move into a proper rollout for The Beast. The date has been announced for summer 2025, so we still have a few months to really get everything ready and prepare for that.

Next year is going to be quite special, but I don’t think we will overdo the celebrations. It’s a nice anniversary, 10 years, but at the same time, I don’t look into the past too much. I’d rather look into the future. I think Dying Light: The Beast will be the climax to all the things that we have done over those 10 years. It will contain all of our gameplay, findings, experiences, and knowledge that we have amassed, hopefully paying respect to the characters that we have created over those 10 years. Then, at the end of the game, there’s also a small glimpse into the future of the franchise. We have high hopes for Dying Light’s future. This is our IP, our baby. We want it to grow and we absolutely don’t want to stop with The Beast, so more is coming in the future for sure.

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It doesn’t seem like Techland’s post-launch plans for Dying Light 2 Stay Human are done just yet, though the studio has other irons in the fire as well. Next up for the zombie-slaying series is Dying Light: The Beast, a new standalone adventure starring the original game’s protagonist Kyle Crane, after having initially started development as DLC for Dying Light 2, before morphing into its own standalone project.

But why was that decision made? How has development progressed for the game behind the scenes? How will it differ from Dying Light 2’s action RPG offerings? What should players expect from the new map? Recently, we had the chance to ask Dying Light: The Beast’s developers about all of this and more. Below, you can read our interview with franchise director Tymon Smektala.

“We originally planned Dying Light: The Beast as the second DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human, but a significant narrative leak that we experienced in the second half of 2023 changed everything. Rather than risk spoiling the story for our most dedicated fans, we decided to act upon it and take a different approach.”

What prompted the decision to spin off Dying Light: The Beast as a standalone game, having started working on it as DLC for Dying Light 2?

We originally planned Dying Light: The Beast as the second DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human, but a significant narrative leak that we experienced in the second half of 2023 changed everything. Rather than risk spoiling the story for our most dedicated fans, we decided to act upon it and take a different approach. During discussions on what could make the project unique, we came up with the idea to bring back Kyle Crane. That idea sparked so much energy and creativity within the team that we quickly realized it could be something far bigger than “just a DLC”. That was definitely the turning point for us – we took a fresh approach, re-designed more than we initially anticipated, and started building Dying Light: The Beast as a full standalone game with new mechanics, a dedicated storyline, and an entire world for players to explore.

The return of Kyle Crane is something Dying Light fans have been waiting for for some time. What led to the decision to bring him back at this time, and what was the process like of figuring out where to take his story and how to reintroduce him to the world of Dying Light?

Kyle’s return came naturally out of our brainstorming for how we’d like to solve the challenge of the leak we experienced. Crane’s an iconic character for the Dying Light community, and we felt that bringing him back after all this time will also give us an opportunity to answer a lot of lingering questions from the first game. We wanted to show how he’d been affected by his years of captivity and experimentation, so he’s a very different Kyle—older, more haunted, and driven by a strong desire for revenge. The crucial aspect of this work was convincing Roger Craig Smith, the voice & “spirit” of Kyle, to get back to the character. It allowed us to explore this character in deeper ways, merging the traits fans know and remember from the first game with new elements reflecting the trauma he’s endured.

Of course, playing as Kyle Crane in Dying Light: The Beast will also mean being able to unleash the unique powers he now has access to. Can you talk a bit about that and how it will impact gameplay, especially in terms of combat?

Absolutely. Kyle’s new powers are the result of experiments conducted on him during his captivity. These beast-like powers make him stronger, faster, and give him brutal new ways to take down enemies, which makes combat feel visceral and intense. But these powers aren’t always accessible. They’re a resource you’ll need to manage, using them strategically at critical moments rather than relying on them constantly.

“With Dying Light: The Beast we wanted to deliver a focused, emotional story that could explore Kyle Crane’s journey in a powerful way. By following a linear narrative, we could create impactful, story-driven moments that wouldn’t have the same force in a branching structure.”

You’ve said that Dying Light: The Beast is going to be less of an RPG than Dying Light 2 was, with choice and consequence mechanics also being dropped in favour of a linear story. Can you talk about why you chose that direction for this game? Should fans also assume that this is indicative of where you want to take the series in the future?

With Dying Light: The Beast we wanted to deliver a focused, emotional story that could explore Kyle Crane’s journey in a powerful way. By following a linear narrative, we could create impactful, story-driven moments that wouldn’t have the same force in a branching structure. This approach also allows us to tie together the lore of both Dying Light and Dying Light 2 Stay Human, giving players answers they’ve wanted for years and setting the canon. As for the future, we’re always open to different formats, but for Dying Light: The Beast, we felt this linear approach best suited the story we wanted to tell.

What can you tell us about the new setting of Castor Woods? What should players expect from it in terms of its size and environmental diversity?

Castor Woods is an intense, atmospheric setting – a rural, forested valley with few diverse biomes, ranging from national park to industrial areas. It’s smaller than the map of Dying Light 2 Stay Human, but it’s much more detailed, designed to make exploration rewarding at every turn. There’s a strong emphasis on environmental storytelling, with secrets, hidden paths, and lore woven into the landscape, each part of the map handcrafted by our artists. There are lots of mysteries hidden in this world, some going back in many many years, and we hope players will find themselves immersed in this eerie, desolate world and will have fun discovering it.

In terms of design, Castor Woods is looking like a less urban setting than what Dying Light fans might usually be used to. How will that impact gameplay, especially where parkour and traversal are concerned?

Parkour is central to the Dying Light franchise, so we knew we had to keep it even if the environment is different. The idea was that even if there are less structures, buildings to climb over and run through, we decided to make every one count – so there’s almost no buildings that you can just enter through the main door. To reach anywhere you need to use the agility of the main character. On top of that we’re also adding an opportunity to drive vehicles and this helps to travel between areas which have a bigger density of parkour obstacles and opportunities. But no matter the form of transportation – either it’s by foot or by car – it’s still the dynamic traversal our fans like a lot, just adapted for this unique environment.

“Dying Light: The Beast leans heavily into survival horror.”

Dying Light has always made horror a pivotal part of its experience. How heavily will The Beast lean into that side of things?

Dying Light: The Beast leans heavily into survival horror, particularly at night, when the danger and tension reach new levels. We focused quite some time on tweaking and upgrading the behavior of our apex predators, Volatiles, to make them scarier and more menacing. Additionally, in the day parts of the game, we wanted to recapture the feel (and fear!) of the early hours of the original Dying Light, where survival is uncertain, and every encounter, even with a simple enemy, could be your last. With more aggressive zombies, with the intense atmosphere, with the immersive visuals – players will really need to be cautious, resourceful, and strategic to survive.

Can you tell us how the experience will scale and change when played co-op as opposed to when it’s played solo?

We’re trying to keep the intense survival feel of Dying Light: The Beast intact in the co-op mode, but of course it’s harder when you have up to 4 players fooling around. Coordinating with friends can make it easier to handle large groups of zombies, so to keep the challenge we scale enemy difficulty to match. There are a few behind the scenes mechanisms that make it so the group is encouraged to stay together, as separating in co-op sessions, while sometimes needed, is always a blogger threat.

Dying Light: The Beast is being described as an 18-hour-plus experience, but does that runtime include optional content, or is that for the main story only?

That 18-hour estimate is for what we call the core playthrough, a regular experience with the game, where you complete the game, but also play with side quests and additional content. It’s very hard to measure the length of an open world game, as usually there’s plenty of optional content, side activities, and secrets to discover – especially with the rich detail we’ve put into Castor Woods – and each player takes that all in differently, depending on his preferences and playstyle.

Are there any plans to make the game PS5 Pro enhanced?

We’re definitely keeping the latest hardware in mind. We want to make sure Dying Light: The Beast takes advantage of everything the PS5 Pro has to offer, but we’ll be sharing more about specific enhancements closer to launch. We already had our first attempt at this by adding some improvements to Dying Light 2 Stay Human but for Dying Light: The Beast we definitely want to take it much, much further.

“We want to make sure Dying Light: The Beast takes advantage of everything the PS5 Pro has to offer, but we’ll be sharing more about specific enhancements closer to launch.”

As a developer, what are your thoughts on the PS5 Pro? How does boost in GPU help in developing your game compared to the base PS5?

We’re just starting to discover the full capabilities of PS5 Pro but it’s already exciting as it gives us a lot more flexibility with graphics and performance. The boost in GPU will allow us to push visual fidelity, especially with complex environmental details like weather effects which are very core to Dying Light: The Beast experience. This kind of power also means generally smoother gameplay at higher resolutions, and that’s something very important for a game like ours, where highest level of immersion is of utmost importance.

What are your thoughts on PSSR? What kind of opportunities will this open for the game?

Sony’s PSSR is a substantial push for the supersampling tech that other companies are experimenting with as well. It’s a great initiative as in the future this can allow developers to focus slightly less about performance being able to have bigger creative liberty. If what Sony is proposing will become a new standard then PSSR could potentially turn out to be even more important than the direct increase in GPU power that the console delivers.

What resolution and frame rate will the game target on the PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and on the PS5 Pro?

It’s too early to confirm such details at this time as the final optimization pass usually happens right before the release, but please stay tuned as we’ll be revealing them closer to the launch.

We’ve seen increasing number of games confirming support for PS5 Pro since the console was unveiled, and another game has now joined that list, with Techland confirming that the upcoming Dying Light: The Beast will be leveraging the console’s more powerful hardware and technical capabilities to deliver targeted enhancements.

Speaking with GamingBolt in a recent interview, franchise director Tymon Smektala revealed that Dying Light: The Beast will be enhanced for the upcoming pro console, confirming that that game will “take advantage of everything the PS5 Pro has to offer”.

“We’re definitely keeping the latest hardware in mind,” Smektala said. “We want to make sure Dying Light: The Beast takes advantage of everything the PS5 Pro has to offer, but we’ll be sharing more about specific enhancements closer to launch. We already had our first attempt at this by adding some improvements to Dying Light 2 Stay Human, but for Dying Light: The Beast we definitely want to take it much, much further.

Though he didn’t share specific details, in the same interview, Smektala also spoke to GamingBolt about how the PS5 Pro’s GPU boost will help Dying Light: The Beast, and why he views PSSR as the console’s defining feature.

Meanwhile, Smektala also confirmed to GamingBolt that The Beast’s open world map will be smaller in size than Dying Light 2’s map, but will be “much more detailed”, and that the game will “lean heavily into survival horror”. Stay tuned for our full interview with Smektala.

Dying Light: The Beast is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but doesn’t yet have a release date.