Techland had one of the most successful reveals during Gamescom, debuting the first trailer for Dying Light: The Beast during the Opening Night Live showcase. I then followed up with Techland twice, once to check out an exclusive extended gameplay demo and again to catch up with Tymon Smektała, the franchise director working on the Dying Light series.
Dying Light: The Beast is an all-new, standalone adventure that started life as the second paid DLC for 2022’s Dying Light 2. I had the opportunity to ask Tymon a few questions about the expansion and the future of Dying Light 2.
Is This The End?
Dying Light 2 fans have been awaiting news regarding the second DLC for the game for quite some time. This isn’t what they expected, but in so many ways, it’s much better. Dying Light: The Beast brings back Roger Craig Smith as Kyle Crane, offering players an 18-hour story that explains the lengthy gap between the first two games in the series.
I was curious to learn about Techland’s plans for Dying Light 2 now that the second (and assumedly final) DLC has become a standalone project:
We had to slow down things a little for the crucial preparation of The Beast for Gamescom, but even on the day of the announcement we released an update to Dying Light 2. We promised five years of support and we’re sticking to that promise. Expect new content updates, also coming this year.
As we looked back at the success of the series, Tymon admitted that Dying Light’s (2015) major expansion, The Following, could also have been a standalone title, but ‘this time around it’s different’.
He advised that The Beast will answer a lot of lingering questions that firm up the series’ lore – along with making the newest entry in the Dying Light series much more accessible to all players. As Tymon stressed, you can now play The Beast without having to ‘convert’ to Dying Light 2.
Speaking retrospectively, Tymon admitted that if they could do Dying Light 2 all over again, they’d let the game ‘mature’ first before announcing it:
At some point in 2021, we started feeling pressure to get it out of the gate, especially as we announced it really early. If I could change naything I’d do just that, allow the game to mature a little internally, allowing us to focus and polish the details that make a good game and an exceptional one. A lesson learned, I guess.
We then looked forward, and Tymon revealed his desire to make Dying Light the zombie experience. He hopes that one day when someone asks what the best zombie game is, the first title on everyone’s mind will be ‘Dying Light’.
I say it’s already there.
I couldn’t have ended the interview without asking about ‘Dying Light 3’, and while Tymon stressed that there are ‘many possible ideas’ for the game, he couldn’t divulge any information.
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