Celebrating 10 years of Dying Light's horror legacy: "We were doubting ourselves a little, and then the players stepped in"

Dying Light was never going to be like anything else. Combining grotesque first-person zombie slaughter with Olympian-level parkour is one thing, but according to franchise director Tymon Smektała, it was never Techland's goal to follow the shambling crowd.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ for Dying Light's 10 year anniversary, Smektała recalls the team's 2015 mission statement – or rather, its guiding principle. "The first thing that anyone would do [in a zombie apocalypse] would be to just run away," he says. "But awkwardly running away turned into parkour and climbing, and clumsiness turned into being super good at climbing and being able to reach places that no one else can. This was definitely the inspiration, the first big idea – maybe a little bit unclear back then, but still the first big idea of the type of switch we want to do on the zombie genre: try to make it more interesting, more real, and because of that, not just focus on fighting but on other ways of surviving and solving challenges in front of you."

It boils down to one intention: "we didn't just want to have an action game where you kill zombies."

The root of evil

A decade later, Dying Light still stands out as one of the most iconic and best zombie games out there. Anniversary celebrations have officially kicked off, with the Dying to Know Show marking the first of Techland's festivities as it looks back on the game that started it all.

Championing a dynamic shift between the danger of night and day, the action-horror epic also introduced us to protagonist Kyle Crane. He quickly became a quintessential survival horror icon, with his implied death at the end of Dying Light cementing his fate as a tragic hero. This makes his impending return in narrative-heavy direct sequel Dying Light: The Beast even more exciting. Set 13 years after the events of Dying Light 1 and The Following DLC, the upcoming horror game gives Techland a chance to show off by putting into practice every lesson the Polish studio has honed from the series' past. But even as Dying Light has gone from strength to strength with each new chapter, its foundations were established over a decade ago – and they still hold true today.

In the initial design documents for Dying Light, Smektała says there were "three gameplay pillars" the series' debut was built around: parkour (or "natural movement," to use Techland's in-house phrasing), first-person melee combat, and strong survival horror leanings. "We also very much like the dynamic of being, as we called it back then, being a hunter by day and the prey by night. Maybe the wording wasn't really perfect," he laughs, "but we used it internally for a very long time." This push toward the horror genre was partly influenced by Techland's initial crack at the world of zombie games in 2011, Smektała reflects. "We were coming fresh from Dead Island, which actually didn't have that much dread. It didn't have that much horror. It was scary in places, yes, but it was a kind of hack and slash, more action focused take on zombies. We wanted to break that dynamic. And to be honest, I think one of the inspirations for that was basically Pac Man."

Smektała acknowledges that Techland went for a more action-heavy approach in sequel Dying Light 2: Stay Human, but stresses how the series' most iconic feature would never have happened without its survival horror roots. "When we set the direction for Dying Light to be survival horror, with the focus on horror type of experience with those dual experiences of day and night, that also changed the rules of the gameplay. It was basically iteration execution, trying to get that right," Smektała recalls. "We created this strike team of about 10 developers that were basically, every day, just trying to pull any string possible to make it as scary as possible. And I think they did a great job… It really scares you, even after all of all these 10 years."

Prescient beginnings

When it comes to the Dying Light's legacy, the "secret sauce" that has kept the series going for a decade, Smektała credits its "correct combination" – rather, its eclectic blending of genres. "There were games with parkour, but we decided to get a parkour focus on it, master it, and present it in first person perspective – which, basically, there was only Mirrors Edge before us that was trying to attempt that." But for all its innovation, Dying Light actually has its scrappy, DLC-shaped younger brother to thank for its wider successes. Or rather, its first wave of fans.

Talking of the game's initial release, Smektała remarks on its disheartening critical reception that netted it scores in line with "an average, seven out of 10 zombie game," he says. "But Dying Light really benefited from word of mouth and gamers recommending the game to each other." It's these heavily invested fans that emboldened Techland to persevere. "We maybe were doubting ourselves a little, and then the players stepped in," says Smektała. "Players helped us to rebuild our confidence and really believe in [Dying Light]. The passion was worth it, the time we spent on it was worth it, because players get it.

Players really see Dying Light as this kind of, somehow, special game. So first of all, we wanted to repay the community, repay the players, and give back some of the love we got from them in the form of The Following." Not only did The Following kick off a longstanding relationship between Techland and its playerbase, commemorated by the developer in a new fan compilation video, its player-driven popularity gave Dying Light its second wind. "It was kind of the catalyst of the media having another go at the game. They'd heard what players were saying, and thanks to that, it caused Dying Light to explode as it did."

"I think the passion was actually even bigger for The Following," says Smektała. "The team that stayed on The Following was a slightly smaller team" composed of Techland devs who were "the most into Kyle Crane, into this world, into zombies," he recalls. "Because it was a smaller project, everyone felt like they owned a part of it. We had a lot of luck, definitely, but also a lot of dedication, a lot of passion. We were a relatively small team back then, because Dying Light was made with – I would say, roughly around 80, maybe 100 people. So it's not that many people, if you compare with the size of studios and teams in recent times – but we were all very, very passionate about what we were doing. And I think it shows."

That passion, then, is the unifying thread that has long connected Techland with its most dedicated players. It's something Smektała – and the whole developer team – has kept firmly in sight, even with the studio's headcount having grown fivefold over the last decade. "When [a] game is released, it's not our game anymore," Smektała says. "It's a game that we share with our players – and it's really sharing this thing together because all of us put emotions into interacting with the game." The emotional exchange has therefore created an unwritten contract between developer and player, bridging the gap between them and no doubt keeping Techland grounded in what matters most. "We [as developers] see the game differently – we don't get the emotion from playing it, but we get emotional by seeing people playing and commenting on it."

The sentimentality that has sprung up around such a grisly video game should be a surprising thing, but in the case of Dying Light, it makes perfect sense. Dying Light was never going to be a game like anything else, but Smektała credits the community for recognizing this back in 2015 and keeping Techland motivated. To me, it's a shining example of the lightning-in-a-bottle moment when a fun horror game becomes more than the sum of its parts, but a thriving, convivial space. "That's why we keep doing it," Smektała says. "I think we'll keep doing it for a very long time."

Dying Light: The Beast is one of our 50 most anticipated video games of 2025 worth keeping an eye on this year.