Dying Light: The Beast “Really Is Dying Light 3”, Franchise Director Says

The franchise spanning over a decade now, Dying Light, is still moving strong despite only sporting two mainline installments from developer Techland. With the second entry releasing only a few years ago in 2022, a new title is coming that sews the two titles closer together. Leaked prior to its announcement via a trademark filing, players were interested to see where the series is going.

Officially announced at Gamescom 2024, Dying Light: The Beast featured the return of the original game’s protagonist, Kyle Crane. Even more, there would be a new story for the character including improved parkour to his moveset and even exotic weapons like the flamethrower. It was not until this June that Techland confirmed Dying Light: The Beast is to launch this August. That was before the delay announced this week.

Around the same time, Techland in an interview with PC Gamer commented on what the title is defined by the Polish game studio. Speaking on the scale of Dying Light: The Beast compared to the last release, “it really is Dying Light 3,” franchise director Tymon Smektała explained to the outlet. “With [Dying Light 1], we really managed to create a game where every piece fit together, and maybe we didn’t appreciate it enough.”

He continues: “Dying Light 1 was a game for our core community. It was a hardcore survival horror, open world, action adventure with very strong survival aspects. For Dying Light 2, we forgot about it. The game was a commercial success, but the players who should be closest to our hearts said we kind of lost the edge, we lost the threat, we lost the horror, we lost the tension.

Smektała further elaborates: “The benchmark for which we try to compare the experience and balance the experience is Dying Light 1, because in that game, you really felt like you were alone in this big city, on this big map, surrounded by zombies. […] Maybe the project started with a slightly smaller ambition, but we got so excited about Kyle Crane returning. We got so excited about, actually, what we can do with this new iteration of the engine, how confident we feel about the gameplay mechanics.”

What has you most excited about Dying Light: The Beast?

Dying Light: The Beast releases for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC on September 19, 2025.

Source: PC Gamer