Techland on Dying Light: The Beast, Kyle Crane’s return and the future of the series

Dying Light: The Beast originally started out as DLC for Dying Light 2. As the team’s ambitions grew, however, the project gradually evolved into a standalone game, with the return of Kyle Crane becoming one of the defining reasons to give it a game of its own.

One year after launch, The Beast has received a strong response from both players and critics, while Techland has continued to refine the experience based on community feedback. We spoke with Nathan Lemaire, Game Director of Dying Light: The Beast, about the game’s origins, the decision to turn it into a standalone title, the return of Kyle Crane, the lessons learned during its first year, and how the experience could influence the future of the Dying Light franchise.

We also discussed Techland’s decision to release a physical edition of The Beast one year after its digital launch, at a time when the industry is increasingly moving away from boxed games.

Dying Light: The Beast started life as a DLC for Dying Light 2 before evolving into a standalone game. What originally made you want to explore this particular story and direction, and what was the moment when you realized it could become something bigger?

Over the course of production, our ambitions grew, not just in terms of scope, but also in the impact we wanted this experience to have on players. When we decided to bring back Kyle Crane, the hero of the first Dying Light, as the playable character, we knew his return deserved a game of its own. Everyone on the team was committed to making Kyle’s comeback as impactful as possible, and to do that, we needed to think bigger.

Looking back one year after launch, how do you evaluate the success of Dying Light: The Beast? Which indicators matter most to you when deciding whether the game has achieved what you wanted it to achieve?

We are very happy with how Dying Light: The Beast was received. It is the highest-rated Dying Light title among the media, and the feedback from players and our community has been very positive, both at launch and throughout the post-launch period.

Our goal was to deliver a continuation of Kyle Crane’s story that felt both true to the original Dying Light experience and like an evolution of the franchise at the same time. We are very happy that we managed to achieve that.

How do you feel about the decision to turn what was originally planned as DLC into a standalone title? With a year of hindsight, would you make the same decision again?

Yes, for us, it was a decision that became natural as the project progressed. Making Dying Light: The Beast a standalone experience allowed us to move beyond many of the constraints we would have faced as a DLC and gave us the freedom to deliver a more ambitious project in terms of scope, story, features, and the overall experience.

Did the decision to make The Beast standalone also change its budget, scope or development timeline in a significant way?

As I mentioned earlier, the decision to release Dying Light: The Beast as a standalone title was a gradual and natural one, so it did have an impact on the project’s scope and development. However, we were already progressing at a steady pace toward our initial goals, so the impact was not as significant as we might have expected.

The Beast brought Kyle Crane back and placed him at the center of the story again. How important was Crane to the decision to make this particular game, and what did his return allow you to do that would not have worked with a new protagonist?

Bringing back Kyle Crane was one of the defining moments that pushed us toward making the game a standalone title. Having Kyle as the main protagonist allowed us to continue his story after the events of The Following and return to the hero who played such an important role in making the original Dying Light a global success, both at launch and throughout its post-launch journey.

The first year has also given you a lot of feedback from players. What reactions to The Beast surprised you the most, either positively or negatively? Was there anything the community understood or appreciated differently from what you expected?

At Techland, we take player and community feedback very seriously, as players are at the heart of why we make games. When Dying Light: The Beast launched, the reception was very positive. We were sometimes surprised by just how excited players were about Kyle’s comeback, the combat, and the story. For us, it was a very special moment.

We also used that early feedback to further improve the experience, making a number of tweaks to combat and enemy behavior as part of our ongoing effort to keep raising the quality of the game.

What are you personally most proud of when you look back at the first year of The Beast? And conversely, is there anything you would approach differently if you were starting development today?

I am very proud of how we, as a team, handled the launch. It is always both a very stressful and an exciting moment. We poured all our energy into making the launch as strong as possible, and I think we achieved that.

During the first days and weeks, we closely monitored player feedback and stayed very focused on fixing issues and improving the experience. As for what I would do differently, it is hard for me to point to one specific thing. Game development is a highly iterative process, and projects naturally evolve throughout production. What matters most is that we stayed true to the experience we set out to create.

The Beast introduced a somewhat different scale and focus compared with the mainline Dying Light games. Did working on a more focused standalone experience change the way the team thinks about the balance between open-world freedom, narrative pacing and player progression?

It did not completely change the way we think about these things, but it helped us better understand how we can create different types of experiences within the Dying Light franchise and how they resonate with players. Every project brings new knowledge and experience, and we always carry those lessons forward into whatever we work on next.

How has The Beast influenced the future of Dying Light as a series? Are there specific ideas, technologies or design decisions from this game that you already know you want to carry forward?

As with every project we release, we learn a lot about our processes, our team, and the results of our work, especially when we look at how the game is received by players and the media.

Dying Light: The Beast helped us further refine our craft, particularly when it comes to things like physicality and visceral combat. These are areas we are always looking to improve and push even further in future projects.

Does the experience of The Beast make you more interested in exploring other parts of the Dying Light universe through spin-offs, rather than always returning to a traditional numbered sequel? Are there areas of the series you feel would particularly benefit from that approach?

Dying Light is a franchise with a lot of potential, and over the past 12 years, we have explored and experimented with many different ideas. The core experience is strong and flexible enough that we can keep finding new ways to build on it and take it in different directions.

You can see examples of that in Dying Light 2’s Tower Raid, or in the “Restored Land” experience in Dying Light: The Beast.

A year after launch, the game is now entering another phase with the anniversary celebrations, new content and its first physical release. How do you see the role of post-launch support today? Has your approach to supporting The Beast changed based on what you learned during its first year?

After Dying Light: The Beast launched, our approach was always to give players more ways to experience the game, while continuing to improve it and respond to the feedback we received along the way.

Post-launch support gives us the opportunity to keep refining and enriching the experience, while making the community an important part of the decisions we make. That ongoing relationship is also a big part of what makes Dying Light so special to us and to our players.

The first physical edition of The Beast is arriving a year after the original launch, at a time when the industry is increasingly moving toward digital-only distribution. What does a physical game still represent for Techland today, and what made you decide that The Beast deserved a physical release after launch?

When Dying Light: The Beast launched, we focused on a digital release. After launch, we closely followed player feedback and saw real interest in owning a boxed version of the game.

We decided to respond to that by partnering with Super Rare Games, who specialize in limited physical editions, to create something special for the game's first anniversary - a natural moment to celebrate the game with our community and thank the players who've been with us this year. It showed us that, for some players, a physical release can still be a meaningful part of the experience.

Looking ahead, we'll continue to make decisions about future titles on a case-by-case basis, always with our players in mind.