Latest news with #Techland
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dying Light: The Beast will have guns that feel "on par with melee combat," as Techland struggles to solve the series' "complicated" relationship with firearms
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Dying Light: The Beast is aiming to solve the series' "complicated" relationship with firearms, by making sure that gunplay feels "on par" with melee combat. Speaking to GamesRadar+, Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała acknowledges that "if Dying Light and 'guns' were on Facebook, their relationship status would be 'it's complicated.'" Pointing out that adding guns to Dying Light 1 was easy thanks to Techland's previous experience on Wild West shooter Call of Juarez, Smektała says that that game's focus on melee combat had people asking "why did you even bother to have the guns there?" Taking that feedback on board, Techland moved on to Dying Light 2, in which there were no guns – "and the first thing we heard after release was 'but where are the guns?'" The studio eventually added firearms back into the sequel, but only after getting around the world-building they'd put into Dying Light 2 to explain its lack of guns. Having gone back and forth in its first two Dying Light games, Smektała says that "for Dying Light: The Beast we decided 'OK, let's give the players the guns if they want, but also let's focus on the guns so they really feel on par with melee combat'." In The Beast, guns will need to feel just as physical and "brutal" as melee combat, but they'll also need to be balanced "so they don't feel too overpowered" in this melee-first world. "Dying Light games were always games about finding your own solutions to problems," Smektała explains. "Going where you want to go, but also finding your own solutions to problems. And right now we want the guns to be just another piece in your toolbox." He gives the example of a strongly-defended outpost, where you'll now have the option to go in quietly with melee weapons or go in loud with firearms. The two options "should offer the same kind of risk and reward level, but realized differently." It's a balancing act that Smektała seems to think the team has pulled off. Speaking ahead of the Dying Light: The Beast delay, he said that "I'm really, really proud with what we've managed to achieve with firearms. I'm not saying we're Call of Duty, which is where the focus is just on shooting, but we managed to have a very competent version of shooting and guns." Dying Light franchise director says The Beast's final mission leaves you no choice, and that's a good thing: "You shouldn't be saying what's canon and what's not."
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dying Light: The Beast is longer than Techland expected, with 20 to 30 hours of "additional stuff" on top of the 20-hour story
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. 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.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dying Light: The Beast dev defends $60 price because "in every metric" the DLC-turned-game is "bigger, denser, and more advanced than we initially assumed"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Dying Light: The Beast may have started development as DLC for Dying Light 2: Stay Human, but it's worth the full $60 asking price anyway because it's apparently outgrown its expansion origins, according to franchise director Tymon Smektała. Dying Light: The Beast sees the original game's protag return to the zombie-infested spotlight in what was initially thought to have been a smaller, expansion-sized take on the parkour-focused formula. But at some point along the way, developer Techland thought there was enough (probably rotting) meat on The Beast's bones to take it further. Speaking to TheThumbWars, Smektała says the game's price is justified because "the game grew" from what was first promised, "especially over a period of six months at the end of last year and the beginning of this year." Techland apparently "kept adding, upgrading, tweaking, leveling up the tech behind the game, and one day we came to a realization that Dying Light: The Beast might as well be the best Dying Light game we ever created." "In every metric – mission count, minutes of cut-scene, unique characters, new enemy designs, additional content, collectibles, secrets, Easter eggs, you name it - Dying Light: The Beast started modestly, but right now it is bigger, denser, and more advanced than we initially assumed," he continues, before asking doubters to "wait until they see the final package" before judging its full price point. I'm not one to justify a game's cost by its length, but Smektała is sure to point out that people won't be paying full price for a condensed experience. "Dying Light: The Beast runs well around 20 hours if you follow the main story alone, and side quests and activities easily double that," he says. "My last full playthrough took me about 37 hours, and it wasn't even the completionist one." He previously said there were 20 to 30 hours of extra stuff to do, on top of the game's main 20-hour story. Dying Light: The Beast will have guns that feel "on par with melee combat," as Techland struggles to solve the series' "complicated" relationship with firearms
CNET
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Dying Light: The Beast Hands-On: Brutal Survival in a Zombie-Ridden Forest
Two hours into my gaming preview of Dying Light: The Beast, I was jogging through a beautiful woodland dotted with cabins and park benches -- a spot that would make for a lovely vacation, if not for the hordes of zombies wandering all over. Despite stealthily creeping around, I was spotted by a large group and frantically fended them off with a shovel, growing more desperate and overwhelmed -- until my rage meter maxed out and I became a beast. I roared and tore the zombies limb from limb until the red haze lifted from my vision, leaving me human again to continue my journey through the park. At a preview event in Los Angeles, California, Polish studio Techland set me and other media members up to play the first few hours of Dying Light: The Beast. It's the next entry in the beloved Dying Light series of games, which combine first-person parkour movement with zombie horror action. After the long gap between the 2015 original and its 2022 sequel Dying Light 2 Stay Human, the third game is coming out just three years later, with a release date of August 22, 2025. Dying Light: The Beast is a course correction that brings back more of the horror and vulnerability that made the first game so successful, Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektala told me. "Wtih Dying Light: The Beast, we want to recapture that fear, that horror, that tension that the first game had," Smektala said. "Maybe it was beginner's luck, but we actually managed to capture the atmosphere and the feel and the balance just right." Part of that is bringing back the first game's protagonist, Kyle Crane, who has been locked away for a decade while the zombie plague he once tried to contain rampages across the world. After escaping an underground lab, Crane quickly discovers that years of experiments done on him have left him with bursts of strength and bloodlust, which comes in handy when he's beset by mutated enemies -- he becomes a monster to fight monsters. Prior Dying Light games let players explore open-world cities with free-roaming parkour movement, leaping over railings and climbing up fire escapes. The Beast expands this to a seemingly less suitable environment: Castor Woods, a sprawling forest that feels like a national park, where players have to thread their way through woodlands, rivers, mountain paths and other terrain. Techland challenged itself to see if the series' parkour movement to evade zombies rather than fight them all would work in different biomes, Smektala said -- and he believes they've cooked up something unique that pushes players to change how they move and deal with the living and the dead. "So you could say, 'okay, maybe I can hide behind trees and try to use how dense the forest is to lose the chase,' but on the other hand, you never really know what you can find behind that tree, what hides in those forests," Smektala said. "We like the fact that there are places on the map where you basically feel weaker, where you feel more fragile." Techland Swinging between fragility and "Beast Mode" revenge In my handful of hours with The Beast, I frequently felt that sense of vulnerability, confidently taking on a couple zombies, only to get cornered by half a dozen more shambling up behind me. Combat feels slow and weighty, relying on timing to avoid exhausting myself. I had to circle enemies carefully and slip between their attacks as my melee swings gradually took them down one by one -- with guns and bullets scarce, at least early on. But when I'd hit (or had been hit) enough to fill my rage meter, the game's unique mechanic, Beast Mode, activated turning me into a monstrous force of nature, battering zombies and ripping off their limbs (if not worse -- the game's brutal dismemberment isn't for the weak-stomached). Beast Mode is a deliberate counterbalance for handling hordes and turning the tides in combat -- partially inspired, surprisingly, by the classic game Pac-Man. "Pac-Man, if you think about it, is actually also a survival game where you are chased by ghosts. You are super weak, just one touch and you die -- but there are those power pellet moments, you grab them and suddenly you can start chasing ghosts," Smektala said, comparing that "cathartic overpower state" to the new Dying Light's Beast Mode. To make sure these moments land when they're most needed, Techland has made under-the-hood tweaks, including filling the Beast Mode meter faster when the player is surrounded by zombies or when being chased by an undead horde at night (more on that later). The game keeps these mechanics hidden, Smektala explained, to prevent players from gaming the system. They're designed to heighten the thrill of pursuit and reversal -- fine-tuned through extensive player testing. "You really feel like these are your last moments, the zombies are coming at you … and they're just about to grab you and suddenly you see that meter has been charged and then you can turn 180 and get that moment of resetting the situation," Smektala said. Techland Beast Mode isn't the only escape route. Unlike the second Dying Light game where players can paraglide between buildings, The Beast's national park areas are too broad for aerial traversal -- but I could jump into abandoned vehicles and drive away from sticky situations… at least until the gas ran out. (You can refuel at select spots and unlock skills to burn less fuel.) Whether you're smashing zombies with improvised weapons, tearing through them in Beast Mode or mowing them down in a car, the game's brutality is unmistakable -- and it's been dialed up since the last Dying Light, thanks to further optimizations to Techland's in-house C-Engine. For The Beast, the studio has doubled the number of possible wounds zombies can take, so whether you strike the head or midsection, you'll see injuries that match. Techland also went all-in on realistic blood spatters rendered by C-Engine: Artists ordered liters of fake blood and spent days creating real-life splats to digitize for the game. "So if you enter a room [in the game] and you see blood dragging on the floor or a blood splat on the wall, actually there was an actor in our mock-up studio that was dragging his body on the floor to leave that mark, and then we just scanned it and put it into the game," Smektala said. Techland Surviving the least relaxing vacation of your life My preview started an hour or so into Dying Light: The Beast, after Crane escapes from the underground facility. He's woken up in the territory of The Baron, a sadistic noble ruling over the national park-like territory in an unspecified European country -- one inspired by Swiss landscapes, a Techland developer told me. His small army of soldiers roam the land doing his bidding, adding another hazard standing between Crane and escape, but they're far from the worst things in this strange land. After escaping the facility, Crane wanders down a mountain trail to find a monastery that he clears of zombies to turn into a safe house. But his final task is to face a mutated monstrosity with a gas mask -- the game's first boss. After putting it in the ground, a scientist named Olivia introduces herself and pledges to help Crane. She takes a blood sample from the creature and convinces Crane to administer it to himself, granting him the upgrade to his Beast Mode. These monsters, which Olivia calls Chimeras, are the faulty results of The Baron's experiments. They roam the woodlands and she urges Crane to hunt them down to grow stronger so he can defeat the psychopathic noble. Each new kill grants a point in the Beast Mode skill tree, unlocking bonuses and new abilities like a ground slam. One of the mutated Chimera types, the Behemoth, that players face in the game. Techland After that, the game opens up, allowing players to alternate between following the main story or side quests and engaging with the game's open world -- exploring territory, gathering supplies and weapons and establishing safe houses to rest and recover. The safe houses are key to waiting out the dangerous dark hours, as the day-night cycle from Dying Light's earlier games returns. When the sun sets, powerful nocturnal ghouls called Volatiles emerge. If alerted, they'll unleash zombie hordes in a chase sequence that only ends with clever evasion -- or reaching a safe house. While players can simply sleep through the night, certain treasure-laden zombies only emerge after twilight, and I imagine other incentives or missions will lure players out of their safe houses. Nighttime also becomes more manageable as players get stronger, either through acquiring equipment or leveling up -- killing enemies will give Crane a bit of experience, while finishing story missions will award a lot. Every level grants a skill point to improve Crane's stealth, parkour or combat abilities, which are important to gather to handle some of the game's tougher enemies, from zombies in combat armor to Chimeras encountered in the wild. As players explore and fill in the map, they'll find some areas have level thresholds. I was driving around when I spotted an intriguing building across the river -- an abandoned mental hospital likely full of loot -- but it was 8 or 9 levels above me, and I didn't want to risk it. You can offset level gaps with gear: Weapons are scattered throughout the world, with rarer loot hidden in riskier spots -- like the military convoy I cleared out to score higher-level equipment. Other weapons must be crafted, and there's a cornucopia of materials scattered around, some that you'll pick up off the ground and others scavenged from defeated zombies. You'll need blueprints to make key weapons -- I found one for a bow in the starting monastery safe house -- and yes, once I built it, I needed to craft the arrows, too. Kyle Crane, the protagonist of the original Dying Light game, returns in Dying Light: The Beast. Techland Becoming your own Beast With a sprawling map to explore, crafting and skill trees, Dying Light: The Beast felt like a familiar yet fun mashup of Far Cry and Mirror's Edge, all set in lovely woodland scenery (as an outdoorsy person, I'm partial to the natural setting, though there is a town in the game to provide some urban parkouring). Combined with the day-night cycle and a story pitting survivors against the vicious Baron, open-world game fans have a lot to chew on in Techland's upcoming game -- especially those who want a bit more of a challenge in their combat. To ameliorate that difficulty, The Beast offers co-op mode, letting players team up with up to three friends. But teaming up won't make the game instantly easier, as Techland made sure to adjust the game's challenge accordingly, from spawning more zombies and making them stronger to giving them area-of-attack swipes to hurt multiple teammates. The Chimeras will be especially beefed up -- so much so that players may not be able to take them down solo when playing with others in a game session. A couple hours into the preview, after taking down a pair of hulking Chimeras, I was tasked with chasing down a third in a swamp. This fiend was different -- a spindly blood-soaked ghoul that reminded me of the fearsome Witch special enemy from the Left 4 Dead games. She dashed in and out of the foggy marshland, and I struggled to track her and land hits while dodging her own -- barely eking out a win thanks to some clutch Beast Mode transformations. When I next took on a hefty Chimera with a concrete slab for an arm that I encountered after delving into the train tunnels, it became clear Techland had designed each of these fights as its own unique arena brawl. I was down in the depths, hunting an especially lethal monster that had been terrorizing survivors, and that Chimera wasn't it. After chasing down the culprit, I pulled back the hood to reveal a familiar face -- Crane's own. Another failed experiment, maybe? As my preview ended, I was left wondering what The Beast truly referred to. As I stepped away, I could feel the game's open-world hooks sinking in -- I just wanted to craft one more weapon, secure one more safe house, hunt one more Chimera and push past the edge of my map. Dying Light: The Beast launches on August 22 for PC, PS5 and Xbox One X/S.
Daily Mirror
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Dying Light: The Beast adds more monstrous ways to thrive in a brutal but luscious parkour paradise
Kyle Crane's return is so far shaping up to be a worthy entry into the Dying Light franchise, with the setting of Castor Woods and new monster powers being the stars of the show. Techland's next open-world zombie slash-a-thon keeps things familiar for the better, wrapping it around a new location and a fresh combat system to make roleplaying a monster an absolute blast. It's somehow been 10 years since the original Dying Light rose up from the ashes of Dead Island to become one of the most popular (and surprisingly consistent) zombie games ever. Rather than look fully ahead for its next entry, however, Polish developer Techland also finds itself equally willing to peer back, choosing to combine elements old and new to make a concoction that all series fans will likely adore. Dying Light: The Beast, as a DLC expansion-turned-full game, not only does this by having a beastlier version of the first game's protagonist return, but by also bringing a renewed focus on making the game scary again thanks to some truly tense night-time scenarios and bigger, more dangerous Volatile enemies to face. All this, mixed in with some truly monstrous ways to dispatch the undead, is already helping the game's parkour paradise premise come alive like never before. Having enjoyed 2022's Dying Light 2: Stay Human well enough but preferring Kyle Crane's original 2015 adventure, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to be back in the character's shoes for this third full instalment. The hero of Harran he may be, yet a lot about him has changed since the end of Dying Light: The Following's canon ending. This most noticeably comes in the form of voice actor Roger Craig Smith's much gruffer tone of voice, way more F-bombs, and a new infection type that has seen Kyle gain new monster powers where he can occasionally hulk out. The latter of which might suck for him personally as a character, but works brilliantly for us as players since trying to successfully navigate a world where thousands of undead flesh-eaters roam is no longer about merely surviving, but viscously thriving too. My three-hour preview session kicked off shortly after the game's beginning, with Kyle fresh off escaping the clutches of a villain known only as the Baron, who has had him caged up like an animal for the past 10 years. Kyle chooses to use his newfound freedom not to find a nice beach somewhere (if any still exist) and retire, but rather by forming new human connections and setting up a base of operations in the luscious, more naturalistic region of Castor Woods. Turns out it's the perfect place to loot weapons, tools, and gear while Kyle works out exactly how to claim his revenge. Such narrative machinations so far aren't adding to a story that's anything particularly spectacular. But hey, these opening hours do well to get you up to speed with the stakes quickly – regardless of if you're familiar with the way Dying Light works or not. Better yet, it does all this while making you question: is the 'beast' referred to in the game's title Kyle at all, or something else entirely? Unleash the beast From a pure mechanics perspective, I was initially surprised by just how similarly Dying Light: The Beast plays to previous entries. Simply put, this isn't some grand reinvention of the open-world zombie-slaying formula that has worked so well before, but it does mean that Dying Light 2 aficionados will feel right at home with what it means to engage in Techland's fun and well-formed parkour system all over again. There's still plenty of reasons to run, clamber, and (in some instances) swing through this playground-like world. Offering a sharp change of tone to these usual antics, though, is of course the new setting of Castor Woods. Touting plenty of greenery, swamps, and open woodland that contrasts nicely with its built-up areas, already the location is making a claim to be my favourite to ever feature in a Dying Light game. Because whether it was exploring the old town district situated in the centre to set up camp at town hall or leaping over swamp shacks in search of a contact, moving through this incredibly diverse map elegantly was never a chore. Once again, Techland has clearly taken the time to make Castor Woods a beautiful, dangerous, but also fun world to move through – and I already can't get enough. I got the sense during my session that Castor Woods won't be as large as Dying Light 2's Villador, but that's okay given the level of variety it offers, and the ability to explore its more cut-off areas via truck. Yes, The Beast marks the first time since The Following's buggy where vehicles are also a viable option. Unlike Kyle's buggy from before, however, he's able to jump into most cars, all of which only have a limited amount of fuel, meaning you can't come to rely on them too much. Cars effectively being just another currency in Dying Light: The Beast also ensures that you're never discouraged from performing the core act of climbing for too long. I say this as someone who got a great kick out of ramming down endless hordes of biters on the road in the few instances I was required to drive to get to the next mission marker. Being able to switch between first- and third-person view on the fly while in vehicles is also an improvement I quickly came to appreciate, helping driving here feel more flexible and less of a chore than in, say, Far Cry 5. The monster within Third-person view is something you'll get accustomed to quite a lot in The Beast when out of vehicles too, as the camera regularly switches between the two perspectives during cut scenes. At first I was worried this might make you feel less aligned with Kyle Crane as a character, when in fact it has the opposite effect. Actually being able to see Kyle, and all the concerning ways this beastly virus is taking over his body, works far better to make him feel like an actual character, rather than just some disembodied voice merely made up of wavy hands and springy legs. Finally, there are obviously the beast abilities themselves, which are so crucial to the experience of this third game that they've been given their own skill tree. That said, unlocking points for it is kept totally separate from the three other strands, requiring you to take down mission critical bosses called Chimera. I fought a handful of these grotesque nasties during my demo, and taking them down was almost always made easier once I'd dealt enough damage to activate beast mode itself. You're not fully invincible in beast mode, but being able to wail on unwitting enemies with your bare hands as the screen swells is something I found to be pleasingly cathartic. Dying Light's melee combat is usually meticulous in that you're trying to dodge while trying to find a gap in an enemy's defence to land the perfect hit. Beast mode, meanwhile, is the complete opposite, and the fact it just activates by itself in the early hours – whether you want it to or not – is a neat way of having it neatly tie to the narrative as Kyle slowly gets to grips with what he has suddenly become. So far then, Dying Light: The Beast seems to be striking that perfect balance of leaning into what worked previously, but coating it in some exciting new traversal and combat systems to help make this visit to Castor Woods feel like its own distinct adventure. Following my demo, I was left curious as to what new Beast abilities are waiting to be unlocked in the late game, in what other ways Castor Woods could potentially open up, and whether or not the beast in the title is all it seems. In other words, there's plenty of secrets still to discover in this third zombie-fuelled go-around, all of which I can't wait to discover.
