“We realized we captured this vibe that we always wanted for Dying Light, the horror and scary aspects of it. We said to ourselves, now that it all works, let’s do something that breaks it all up,” reveals Smektala about the game’s early development in perfecting the franchise’s survival horror tones. “If you survive long enough, you might be able to trigger Beast Mode. This creates a new dynamic where hope never dies and you keep pushing.”
Though the open-world experience remains, along with the option of four-play cooperative online gameplay with cross-progression for those looking to face the zombie apocalypse with friends, Castor Woods makes Dying Light: The Beast feel like a fresh experience. When chased by groups of ravenous undead, players can’t always rely on losing their pursuers by jumping across rooftops if they’re caught in the wide, rural portions of the map. Techland has also refined and made the driving mechanic introduced in Dying Light: The Following more prominent, giving players more options to navigate Castor Woods’ winding mountain roads, with even some off-roading possible.
“We knew that we were going to keep the essence of Dying Light: parkour, many weapons, the day-and-night cycle, etc. But we also knew that we wanted to test new things out. One of the things that we definitely wanted to test was a new environment,” Smektala continues. “Dying Light: The Beast is different because we have swamps and forests there. We wanted to find if we could find a meaningful way for a Dying Light game to happen in those locations. We found out that we could actually do that and those new areas add a lot of new things to the experience.”
Dying Light: The Beast comes out in time for the franchise’s 10th anniversary, with the series having collectively sold over 50 million units across all of its available platforms so far. In returning to the story of Kyle Crane, after introducing a completely different protagonist in 2022’s Dying Light 2, The Beast feels like more than just a full circle moment for the development team at Techland. Completely reinvigorated by the experience of revisiting Crane and pushing his adventures into one of superhuman proportions, Techland hints at not only a satisfying return to form for the Dying Light franchise but a robust future moving forward.
“I love working on Dying Light. This is my type of game. I’m very happy that we’ve managed to go so far with the series and I hope Dying Light: The Beast will be a very nice summary and culmination of those experiences. But I also do hope that we’ll surprise players and the gaming industry with all the new Dying Light games that we’re already thinking about.”
Developed and published by Techland, Dying Light: The Beast will be released August 22 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions planned for late 2025.
