Dying Light: The Beast is a departure for Techland’s Dying Light franchise considering the overall tone of Dying Light 2 Stay Human, especially when compared to the original Dying Light. Franchise director Tymon Smektała spoke in an interview with PCGamer about how the upcoming game will compare to its predecessors, as well as how the reception of Dying Light 2 Stay Human shaped the studio’s decisions.
Smektała also spoke about how the studio seemingly lost its way with following up on the original Dying Light with Dying Light 2 Stay Human. He admits that the studio “forgot” about the elements that made the original Dying Light so beloved, especially in terms of its survival horror trappings coupled with action adventure gameplay.
“With [Dying Light 1], we really managed to create a game where every piece fit together, and maybe we didn’t appreciate it enough,” Smektała said.
“Dying Light 1 was a game for our core community. It was a hardcore survival horror, open world, action adventure with very strong survival aspects. For Dying Light 2, we forgot about it. The game was a commercial success, but the players who should be closest to our hearts said we kind of lost the edge, we lost the threat, we lost the horror, we lost the tension.”
According to Smektała, feedback from Dying Light 2 Stay Human is what prompted the studio to work on Dying Light: The Beast. He spoke about how the game will return to the feeling that the original Dying Light brought about, putting the players in a big urban map and surrounded by zombies.
“The benchmark for which we try to compare the experience and balance the experience is Dying Light 1, because in that game, you really felt like you were alone in this big city, on this big map, surrounded by zombies.”
In the interview, Smektała also spoke about the scope of Dying Light: The Beast, going as far as outright saying that Techland considers it to be the third mainline game in the franchise. “For us, it really is Dying Light 3,” he said.
“Maybe the project started with a slightly smaller ambition, but we got so excited about Kyle Crane returning. We got so excited about, actually, what we can do with this new iteration of the engine, how confident we feel about the gameplay mechanics.”
All of this considered, Smektała also revealed why, despite considering Dying Light: The Beast as Dying Light 3, the studio didn’t officially title it with the number 3. It essentially comes down to the fact that the game doesn’t bring in a major new feature that the studio could build the game around.
“It doesn’t bring this very spectacular breakthrough new feature that maybe you would expect from the next numbered entry in the series, but it’s a very proper triple-A game. Very chunky,” Smektała said.
Dying Light: The Beast got a trailer over the weekend giving us a look at its gameplay, as well as revealing the fact that it will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on August 22. Check out more details in the new walkthrough that was released over the weekend.
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