Dying Light: The Beast - QandA

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Wccftech interviewed Tymon Smektala, Franchise Director for Dying Light:

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Dying Light: The Beast Impressions and Q&A From SGF 2025

We recently went hands-on with the first North American preview event for Dying Light: The Beast during our appointment with Level Infinite to see their other lineup, including Exoborne. From roughly the beginning of Kyle Crane's return to the world of Dying Light, we got to play out the first hour or so of the adventure, following his escape from captivity after a thirteen-year stint of experiments and inhumane treatment. While he wasn't yet The Beast that this semi-sequel proves, the gameplay did show a meaner, more vindictive Kyle Crane who's angry at the world. This is a man who still has his parkour instincts but isn't shy about knocking a few heads around with a two-handed weapon, no matter if they're human or volatile.

What was behind the decision to make Kyle Crane's adventure its own standalone title rather than a DLC for Dying Light 2?

First of all, it makes sense because it's Kyle Crane, right? And there is the whole origin story about how the project started. But actually, I don't really want to go there, because right now at Techland we feel that this is a burden that we have to kinda carry on our backs and I think it makes our work a little bit more challenging because we now need to convince players.

But even though it started as something then, right now it's basically the next Dying Light game. It just doesn't have three at the end of it because we just don't want to scare too many people that might be new coming to the franchise. But actually, we would like to lose that weight on our backs because even though everything starts as something, it evolves and changes. Over the last six months, we have kept adding and adding and adding to the game. Right now, it's an extremely sizable game. The main story takes about 20 hours to complete and all the extra stuff, the side narrative, side mission, and open world activities, they easily double that.

Also, in terms of quality and implementation, side missions have cutscenes, they have quest design practically on the same level as the main story. The last time I played Dying Light: The Beast from start to finish was in April, and my save was 37 hours long of gameplay. So, it is a very proper experience. We have also improved the visuals a lot. Our in-house C-Engine in-house engine went through a number of iterations. Now, all the weather effects, the rendering of materials, lighting, shadows, and how the sun moves in the sky. All of those things are on a completely different level compared to Dying Light 2: Stay Human. One day, we realized we had a new game on our hands. That realization is also something that we would like to assume moving forward as a developer. Because both Dying Light 1 and 2 took seven years to make. We think that with a slightly different approach, with a bigger focus, we can release games more often. We are probably looking at a three or four year cycle, and I think that Dying Light: The Beast is the first step in that direction.

I understand why some players might think, 'oh, it started as a small thing and now they charge full price, they just want to sell it as the next game.' But it actually is, it is the return of Kyle Crane. The campaign is comparable to the previous games, and I think it really is the best Dying Light game we have ever made.

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