Techland has been blending atmospheric horror and the over-the-top absurdity of drop kicking a shambling zombie corpse 50 feet off a rooftop for nearly a decade. With the team's next brand-new entry – Dying Light: The Beast – set to release in summer 2025, we sat down with franchise director Tymon Smektala to learn more about the game's focus on creating tension in new spaces, all-new weaponry, and balancing horror with deeply unserious co-op shenanigans.
This time around, Techland's big focus is on making night time scarier than ever in Dying Light: The Beast. Part of that involves some new tricks to create moments of tension within the game – namely using horror films as an inspiration for taking small moments and creating a sense of unending dread. "Something scary is happening with a ghost or a serial killer, and the characters just need to go to the other end of the corridor because there's safety there, and usually that's a simple straight line," says Smektala. "But because of how the movie sounds, how the camera works, how it builds tension, it's one of the most tense moments of those movies and we are looking at scenes like this to get inspired."
The team looks to build these stressful moments upon Dying Light: The Beast's new locations. While players are used to being able to parkour around city rooftops to escape from hordes of enemies giving chase, The Beast's environmental variety allows for the team to play with more open spaces, where a lack of verticality is used to craft nail-biting moments of uneasiness. The new swamp biome is filled with long stretches of ankle-high water and heavy fog to obscure the player's vision – creating a new way for the team at Techland to play with the player's mind. "Generally, we pull some strings to surprise you with the zombies being here or there, which parts of the environment have you checked yourself, and so which ones aren't really known to you," explains Smektala. "Then we use those areas to create a threat – spawn a zombie, play some audio cue, or maybe some other element – to scare you."
Gearing up
Yet balancing these new horror elements and four-player co-op in The Beast proved challenging. So the team decided against trying to force it to work. "It's almost unachievable to keep the horror vibe and still have four players when one is teabagging a zombie while another one is doing some other crazy stuff, and the third one is in your ear talking about another TV series that he has watched the day before." It's not about trying to "make it work," Smektala says: "It's just a different type of experience."
Still, there's much more to The Beast than just trying to scare players into submission. There's a focus on what has made the franchise so beloved by fans over the last decade, and weapons are a huge part of that equation.
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Techland
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One PS5, PS4
Release date: Summer 2025
Dying Light is known for cobbling together modified weapons that turn your average wrenches and pipes into zombie killing machines. Whether you're slapping on a battery to add electric pulses to every hit or taping on a blowtorch to smoke your enemies, the franchise has been missing a staple of any zombie-murdering arsenal. "For some reason in our zombie game, we didn't have a flamethrower, and actually come to think of it, it's something quite classic that you should have," says Smektala, laughing. "So, yes we'll have a flamethrower."
Alongside the new flamethrower there will also be a grenade launcher with different types of ammo, including UV grenades that are great for getting zombies off of your tail. Vehicles also make their return and this time players can finally drive around in first-person – something the team never truly planned for. "The interesting story behind it is that we didn't really intend it to be this way when, even when we were announcing the game at Gamescom, we were asked this by our players, and we said we planned driving to be third-person only," says Smektala. "But then we had so many voices from players who wanted first-person – even if it makes you feel like you have lower visibility – [because] it adds to the immersion, it keeps the integrity of the character. So we went the extra mile to add first-person."
Outside of a suite of new weapons and vehicles, The Beast is centered around Kyle Crane and his newfound powers after being experimented on by the game's villain, The Baron. These powers aren't always available, but rather round out the player's arsenal when the time is right. "The best metaphor I can give is Pac-Man basically," says Smektala. "Like those long moments where you fear the ghosts, where you try to avoid them, you don't want them to grab you, but then you get the Power Pellet, and suddenly you can turn the table." We don't know much about these new powers yet, but Smektala assures us we will learn more "closer to release."
Luckily, we won't have to wait too much longer, as Dying Light: The Beast is set to release in summer 2025.
See what other exciting releases are on the horizon in our round up of new games for 2025 and beyond.
