Dying Light fans have been enjoying The Beast since mid-September, and thanks to updates made by Techland, it’s proving to be a gift that keeps on giving. In case you’re uninitiated with The Beast, the game effectively sets up the next generation of Dying Light, an open-world zombie slasher title that has existed since 2015.
However, not every Dying Light game ever concocted has made it to the market. In 2015, the Techland team released Dying Light, then in 2022 came Dying Light 2: Stay Human. But between those games sat a whole array of concept titles, and one in particular would have been a total genre pivot for fans of the relatively new franchise.
Dying Light: Hellrunners Laid to Rest
Between 2016 and 2017, the team at Techland was busy innovating in the Dying Light space, and one title that came out of the creative minds of those at the firm was Dying Light: Hellrunners.
Hellrunners would have been a ‘runner’; a game that typically uses procedural generation or a never-ending loop to permit the player to, you guessed it, run forever. As the player traverses an endless pathway, they’re faced with obstacles to repeatedly overcome while securing points, coins, tokens, or something else entirely.
However, Techland was quick to point out that the endless approach was just one angle, and that the team was also trying out a ‘level-based’ approach.
Think of a game like Canabalt, a horizontally-scrolling endless runner, but add in nicer graphics, is what I was told. Then, throw in the undead and some parkour mechanics, and you’re probably close to picturing Dying Light: Hellrunners.
I caught up with Techland’s Tymon Smektala, Franchise Director, to learn more about Hellrunners and why the game never saw the light of day:
We experimented with a runner DL game but after some prototypes realized that there’s not much we can do to make it stand out or innovate within the genre.
With that, Hellrunners was shelved, never to be revisited, and the team moved on to piece together Dying Light 2: Stay Human.
Being a Dying Light fan, I was curious to learn if there were any relations between ‘Hellrunners’ and ‘Nightrunners’, the faction that exists within Villedor in Dying Light 2: Stay Human.
There was no connection between Hellrunners and Nightrunners – Nightrunners were conceptualized later in the production of Dying Light 2: Stay Human, long when Hellrunners was altogether scrapped.
It’s easy to imagine Dying Light: Hellrunners as a pretty gnarly mobile game. Runners are still pretty popular today, but they’re mostly hyper-casual experiences that offer little in the way of gameplay depth and are mostly time-killer titles.
I could just picture Dying Light: Hellrunners, though. I can imagine obstacles being items to vault or leap over, gaps that need to be crossed with a well-timed grapple hook, and undead lumbering in your path that need to be struck down as you run, all while you collect UV bars, coins, or vials of Antizin.
Do you wish Dying Light: Hellrunners had been made in the end? Let me know what you’re thinking on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Techland has returned to Dying Light 2: Stay Human updates
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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