Dying Light: The Beast is longer than Techland expected, with 20 to 30 hours of "additional stuff" on top of the 20-hour story

Dying Light: The Beast is longer than even its developers were expecting, but you won't have to worry about slogging through a massive RPG even if you're a completionist.

When Techland first unveiled Dying Light: The Beast, it was billed as an 18+ hours game - a little smaller in scope than a full game, but a little bigger than the DLC that it was originally planned to be. Now, however, franchise director Tymon Smektala has told GamesRadar+ that "in terms of what you will play, the story's 20 hours."

That's slightly up from those 18 mentioned earlier, but still firmly within the grounds of being a nice, compact game. And for those of you who do want a bigger experience, there's plenty more to uncover beyond the story - in keeping with how Dying Light: The Beast's devs are conscious of how much goes into making a great open-world game.

Smektala says that "the additional stuff" - secrets and side activities scattered around the world - will amount to "at least another 20, 30 hours." That suggests plenty to get your teeth into in a manner that potentially belies Dying Light: The Beast's more humble origins. "I think we are very competitive compared to basically anything that's there on the market," Smektala says. "Just like AAA [games], we really want this to be a game with a presence. It grew a lot over the last number of months [and] I think it deserves that."

A 20 hour main story with around the same again for side content should mean that Dying Light: The Beast isn't too hard to finish - something Smektala says he's desperate for players to do since the game's final mission is the best one, according to internal playtesters.

Check out our Dying Light: The Beast hands-on preview for even more information about Kyle Crane's next adventure.