From Humble Origins to Rapid-Paced Work, Here’s How Dying Light: The Beast Was Developed

Dying Light: The Beast appears to be the franchise’s iconic formula firing away on all cylinders: Kyle Crane is back, zombies are everywhere, parkour is tuned up, and nighttimes are terrifying. In Dying Light: The Beast, players return to Kyle Crane’s shoes as he pursues his vengeance against The Baron, all while his good-guy instincts won’t let him abandon those around him. It’s an interesting conflict and one with a question at its core: who, here, is really the beast?

But getting there, as in all game development cycles, is not simple nor easy. Game Rant recently sat down with key members of the Techland development team—including Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała, game director Nathan Lemaire, and quest designer Kalina Sobierajska. We talked about its origins as a Dying Light 2 DLC, the expansions that separate it from this undeserved context (as all games start somewhere), the day-to-day work, and what it meant to the team to bring Kyle Crane back and make a brand-new entry in the Dying Light franchise. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Dying Light: The Beast’s Origins: Setting it Straight

Game Rant: Let’s go back to day one. Dying Light: The Beast began as a DLC for Dying Light 2. When originally conceived as that DLC, what was the general idea for the Beast?

Smektała: Even though I’d love everyone to forget about the origins of Dying Light: The Beast, as it puts the game in a slightly undeserved context, I think it’s worth telling the story for the last time, to get it finally straight. Yes, it’s true that the catalyst of the creation of Dying Light: The Beast was the narrative leak of our second Dying Light 2: Stay Human DLC, but the original DLC didn’t really have that much in common with the fully fledged game that players will get to play in the end.

We took just a few, simple elements from that DLC: mostly the general idea of placing the project in a desolate valley full of beautiful nature, ruled by a ruthless antagonist. But really, to use a metaphor, we burned the old work to the ground and built a new game on its ashes, and the first stepping stone was the decision to cast Kyle Crane as the main protagonist. This changed everything, both creatively and in terms of production planning and scope. As soon as the decision was made, we took a few steps back, went from production to pre-production and spent weeks imagining a new game in the series, with Kyle as the main hero, with a narrative that’s centered around him and with a more “gates wide open” approach to what kind of features we’d like to see in the scope. This meant increasing the map and making it more varied, creating a few dozen new characters, writing a huge number of brand new quests and side quests, allowing ourselves to have a bigger ambition in terms of technological improvements made to our own in-house C-Engine. At the end of that pre-production period, everyone at the studio understood that what we’re looking at is the next game in the series, one that we’re fully ready to pour all of our hearts into.

Every game starts somehow: from a genius idea, from an iteration of an existing genre, from the urge to tell something. We started with a leaked project on a smaller scale, but this ember allowed us to create something very special to the whole team, and to bring back Kyle Crane a little bit faster than we initially anticipated.

Dying Light: The Beast Needed Kyle Crane

Game Rant: You knew that The Beast was Kyle Crane’s story. Can you speak about that process and how this change to a full standalone game came about? Why not just make a DL2 DLC that puts players in Crane’s shoes?

Smektała: We always wanted to go back to Kyle, and we knew that it would happen sooner or later. There are people in the studio who literally have Kyle glued all over the walls of their workspaces, and a large number of people working on Dying Light: The Beast are the people who worked on the original game. Kyle’s fandom is definitely very, very strong at Techland.

The good thing is that when we started working on the narrative for Dying Light: The Beast we didn’t have to start from scratch – the broad strokes of Kyle’s fate were already defined, as we designed them while working on the lore for Dying Light 2: Stay Human. We always looked at our world as consistent and continuous, so even though Kyle didn’t play a part in the second game, we had to know, internally, where such an iconic character should be and what happened to him. So, instead of coming up with a new story, we just had to add details to an outline we always had in our heads.

The crucial part of us starting the work on Dying Light: The Beast was making sure that we could get Roger Craig Smith on board. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what we’d do if Roger said no; I think this could actually make us look for a different story to tell. Thankfully, Roger found time for us—not easy for a voice actor of such status—and not only agreed to take part in the project, but also saw this as an opportunity to deliver one of the strongest performances of his career, using all the experiences he has gathered over these 10+ years, to create a changed, more mature take on Kyle Crane.

Game Rant: Once Dying Light: The Beast began to take its current shape, what did those first months and that first year look like?

Smektała: Extremely intensive. Since we felt we were running on time and there are Dying Light fans out there who expect us to deliver something soon, we decided to assume a very focused approach to production. Usually when you work on a game as expansive as Dying Light: The Beast, you allow yourself some spare time to make mistakes, learn from them, and improve the concept through that learning. But for The Beast, it was different as we were going into the project full of learnings from Dying Light 2: Stay Human and from various ways where it strayed from the original formula. 10 years of working on the series was very helpful for this project, as it allowed us to work in laser-focus mode, fully aware of what makes Dying Light, Dying Light. It was also a new experience for us as a studio: this lean, mindful, rapid-paced work. I’m sure it’s a process we’ll try to recapture for our next releases.

Sobierajska: It was a ton of work, especially when it came to the script. A lot of changes were made over the months (which is just part of the natural process: you start with a draft, then develop a treatment, etc.). I think what really mattered was that, from the very beginning, we had a pretty clear vision for the map, and that helped ground all the action in a very specific setting.

Game Rant: What about the last year? I am sure you spent a lot of time polishing, but did any specific Dying Light: The Beast features demand your attention the most?

Sobierajska: I think the experience really depends on which specialist you ask; everyone puts in a ton of effort to make the game as good as possible. For sure, it was a big challenge to create a story that honored the return of Kyle, the protagonist from DL1, who’s loved by the community. It’s always tricky to do something like that because the core fans have their expectations, but at the same time, you can’t forget about new players who might not even know who Kyle is. Writing a story like that, especially for an open-world game, is definitely challenging.

Dying Light: The Beast is Dying Light 3

Game Rant: This is the third Dying Light game. Can you speak to how you’ve leveraged that specific expertise and experience with this franchise in the development of this game?

Smektała: The experience from Dying Light and Dying Light 2: Stay Human was essential for the production of Dying Light: The Beast. We were very lucky with the first game, hitting almost all of the right notes on the first go. Then, with Stay Human, we tried to expand the formula in many, various ways and discovered that you can also make decisions which are not so on point. Yet, with huge support and help from our dedicated community, we managed to straighten all of the kinks, elevating our understanding of what players expect from a Dying Light game. The most important learning was to not be afraid of creating a demanding, challenging experience. That’s why we made nights so scary, parkour so grounded, and combat so physical and balanced towards survival.

Game Rant: How has the development of Dying Light: The Beast differed from the first two games?

Smektała: Very focused, mindful, and rapid. We didn’t waste a day. Both the first and second game were basically discovered as we produced them, as in both cases we entered production having a number of unanswered questions and unspecified designs on the table, plus in the case of Dying Light 2: Stay Human, we were also putting together a game while working on the first iteration of the engine the game was supposed to run on (our in-house C-Engine). With The Beast, we were able to leverage a number of things: 1) our knowledge and understanding of the series, which gave us a clear vision for the project, 2) the stability and maturity of the engine, which allowed us to make some cool technological advancements and 3) a very genuine and above-the-norm passion and dedication from the team very excited about the return of the character they love.

Game Rant: Zombies, Parkour, Nighttime are pretty clear pillars and identifiers of Dying Light. Three games in, can you talk about how your approach to these three pillars has evolved with your experience?

Lemaire – As we iterate these pillars with each new Dying Light game we develop, we are always looking at how to evolve while keeping our core roots. With Zombies and Parkour, it meant adapting our formula to the diverse environments of Castor Woods, making each area dangerous in its own way, while allowing us to traverse them by parkouring or by using our new vehicle. As for the Nights, we wanted to have a truly horrifying experience where, as a player, you would feel vulnerable around our powerful roaming Volatiles, and Castor Woods offers the perfect setting for that, with its open areas and dark forests.

Smektała: A lot of the “new” in Dying Light: The Beast comes from the environment itself. I think we even underestimated how much it will change, and in many ways improve, the experience. Imagine being alone at night somewhere in the wilderness where it’s not so easy to run away using your parkour skills: the feel, the emotions that accompany you are completely different and, to be honest, much scarier. We had to come up with new ways to reinforce our “go anywhere, climb anything” parkour pillar, where for example, we made a conscious decision to make sure that almost none of the buildings in the game could be entered through the main entrance, from the ground level, forcing players to use their agility.

Flamethrowers Are a Lot of Fun

Game Rant: I know development processes have a process of “finding the fun,” but having worked on other Dying Light games, is that the case? How do you know or identify what is “fun” when these games have a pretty clear identity?

Smektała: Oh boy, we did our share of “finding the fun” already with Dying Light and Dying Light 2: Stay Human, but it’s a model of developing games that is justifiable basically only when you’re working on the first few outings of a series. The first game needs to be a discovery because you can’t really tell the fun on paper, the second should teach you how to tweak the formula, but with the third your obligation is somewhere else. The current economic climate is so harsh that, for a developer with our experience and history, we owe it to our players and our developers to be very, very focused on what we’re doing, fully leveraging all of our previous learnings and insights. I don’t want to say that Dying Light: The Beast is a safe sequel, as we’re doing a number of things that take us outside our comfort zone—the new environment, so far away from our usual cityscapes; the Beast Mode, which clashes with the survival feel of our series—but we’re trying to be very, very considerate with all the decisions we make.

Game Rant: Tymon, in previous interviews, you’ve said that Techland has treated Dying Light: The Beast as Dying Light 3 and have emphasized it as the “next AAA Dying Light game.” What has that meant for its development and its release?

Smektała: It was meant to emphasize that, even though the origin story could suggest otherwise, we didn’t pull any punches when working on this one. We’re going big with cutscenes, not holding resources on any features, and pushing the tech side a lot. I’m especially proud of what we achieved in terms of the graphics. The next-gen iteration of C-Engine allowed us to take the lighting, rendering, and streaming above anything we did before. Just try to compare the density and the realism of the scene in Dying Light: The Beast and Dying Light 2: Stay Human, the difference is truly huge. This particular improvement was also made possible by us joining the Tencent family. We consulted the visual improvements with engineers from many Tencent studios, including Hideki Sasaki, the Technical Art Director of Kojima Productions.

Dying Light: Now & Forever

Game Rant: Dying Light: The Beast’s release date is right around the corner. Can you reflect on what that means for your team, but also what it means to Techland and the franchise?

Sobierajska: For the team, it’s about crossing our fingers and hoping players enjoy the game. We put a lot of heart and effort into creating it, and our main goal was to make something players would truly love. For us, as developers, that’s the best reward.

Smektała: It’s always a mix of hope and anxiety, but to be honest, we feel rather good and confident about Dying Light: The Beast. The feeling is very similar to what we had right before the release of the first Dying Light. There’s something special about this project, and we’re just keeping our fingers crossed for players to see it.

And for the franchise: I hope Dying Light: The Beast will be a good, strong exclamation mark making a statement for the 10th anniversary of the series. We already have ideas for future Dying Light games and projects, so we hope that Dying Light: The Beast—along with both previous games—will form a very strong foundation for these upcoming initiatives.

[END]

Dying Light: The Beast

Released

September 19, 2025

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Use of Drugs

Multiplayer

Online Co-Op

Franchise

Dying Light

PC Release Date

September 19, 2025

Xbox Series X|S Release Date

September 19, 2025