Dying Light: The Beast Franchise Director Dishes on Game Pass, Why Dying Light 3 May Not Happen and Why Players Should Rethink Their Price Increase Annoyance – And Batman!

Last Updated on Oct 27, 2025 @ 17:55:13 PM.

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The next installment in the Dying Light franchise is almost here, and we once again spoke to Tymon Smektala, franchise director, about what we can expect with Dying Light: The Beast. Sharing some shocking revelations, as well as joking (we think) about a parody of DC’s Batman being included in the game, he was more than willing to share all the details we’ve been desperate to know since the shock announcement last year.

Editor’s Note:
Due to this being a written/speech interview, some answers have been edited for clarity/brevity, without removing intent and context.

Tymon Smektala Once Again Bares All for Big Bumper Discussion’s Dying Light: The Beast Feature

This isn’t our first chat with Tymon; in fact, this is the third, so if you’d like to review those first, you can find them here and here. Otherwise, read on and check out everything he had to tell us this time around!

Firstly, thank you so much for your time again! For those unaware, would you be so kind as to say who you are and what you do?

My name is Tymon Smektala, and I’m Franchise Director for the Dying Light series at Techland. In short, I’m responsible for the consistency of the creative vision for every new Dying Light project – influencing the work of writers, artists, programmers, and designers to make sure that any next project both honors the franchise’s DNA and pushes it forward. I also have a hand in helping Dying Light grow; currently, the series has reached around 50 million players worldwide, but there’s a lot of untapped potential that I’m trying to turn into reality.

You’ve announced a lot over the last month, from The Beast’s release date to Dying Light: Retouched. How is the team managing to keep up with the workload, as well as keeping a good balance?

It’s a complex challenge from the realm of game production, but the simplest possible answer is that we achieve that by running parallel teams. Dying Light: The Beast has its own dedicated crew, Retouched is led by some veterans of the first game, post post-launch support for Dying Light 2: Stay Human is also delivered by another set of talents at Techland.

We benefit from central tech, QA, and leadership. We share knowledge, insights, findings, tips, and tricks, but every team has its own thing, and every team has the ambition to try and beat its last high score, metaphorically speaking. We track workloads carefully and rotate people when crunch threatens- a healthy studio makes better games and allows developers to live up to their professional dreams.

What makes Dying Light: Retouched different from a full remaster?

Dying Light still looks and plays great, so we just wanted to squeeze a little bit out of it due to some of the recent advancements we’ve made ourselves in our approach to lighting and textures. Retouched keeps every polygon in place; it just delivers one more extra layer of polish that players could feel without us rebuilding the whole game from scratch. Will a full remaster happen at some point? There are no plans like that at the moment, but I can imagine there will be a moment in time where we’ll feel it makes sense to do a bigger-scope preservation of this classic title.

Yet another free offering to the community – in an age of great worry for studios regarding the bottom line, how are you managing to do this?

Not everything should be looked at through the perspective of the bottom line. We see real value in a long-lasting relationship with our community, and we made it a key factor in our decision-making process. We’re here for the long run, having far-fetched plans for the future of the series, intending to keep releasing Dying Light games for years to come. To be able to achieve that, we need to be fair with our players, treating them respectfully and seriously.

As a follow-up, has this been part of the reason behind the price increase of The Beast?

The only price for Dying Light: The Beast is the one that we’re asking for it right now, so it’s hard to call it an increase, but I suppose the question relates to how we position the game as the next big adventure in the series, which we didn’t do when the game was announced. The easy answer is – the game grew, especially over a period of six months at the end of last year and the beginning of this year.

We realized from the start of the project that having Kyle Crane as the main protagonist did something to us all – energized us, inspired us, created an ambition to treat this project special. We kept adding, upgrading, tweaking, levelling 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.

Since that $60 announcement, a lot of fans have voiced their disdain, with some really not seeing the perceived extra value and why it’s set to cost more for a smaller-scale adventure. What do you have to say to them?

I’d ask them to wait until they see the final package. I’m confident that when players get to experience the game, they’ll see the price tag – still far from being the highest! – is justified. Dying Light: The Beast runs well around 20 hours if you follow the main story alone, and side quests and activities easily double that. My last full playthrough took me about 37 hours, and it wasn’t even the completionist one.

You’ve gone on record as saying that this has grown in scope and is now considered Dying Light 3, at least internally. Does this mean there are more missions, story, maps, and so on than we originally expected last year?

Yes, 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. If I were to point to one thing why this happened, I’d undoubtedly point to the Crane-factor. We just found it fricking cool to have this character back.

Dying Light: The Beast is Different, but the Same

When gamers think of Dying Light, they think about parkour and melee combat. The latter seems to be taking a back seat to more advanced gunplay in The Beast. With guns being so prevalent in this latest entry, is that a permanent change for the franchise?

Melee was and is king, and we neither pull back nor cut back on that. I think it’s safe to say that our handling of melee weapons in FPP became a benchmark, or at least a strong reference, for the whole industry, and right now we’re just expanding on our 10 years of experience in that regard. With firearms, it was different. We had some in DL1, but they were an afterthought, added late to the game.

We decided not to have them in Dying Light 2: Stay Human, mostly for world-building purposes, but our community told us that they actually would love to score some headshots. For Dying Light: The Beast, we went all in, created a whole team around the topic of firearms, invested time and resources to have them on a level that we feel is quite competitive with other games on the market in 2025.

In Dying Light: The Beast, guns are not an addition, not an afterthought – they’re a fully realized addition to the player’s toolbox, properly balanced so they’re on par with melee weapons, just bringing another set of pros and cons to consider in a combat situation. And will they stay? We’ll if we decide to do Dying Light: Pompeii, probably not, but definitely The Beast is not the last Dying Light game to have them.

And for that matter, should we expect Crane’s powers to be a permanent fixture, too?

Right now, they’re the “unique special feature” of Dying Light: The Beast, and we’d like each of our Dying Light experiences to have at least one of those, so I don’t think we’ll return to this kind of mechanic anytime soon. That’s another reason to cherish Dying Light: The Beast when it releases – it might be the only Dying Light game in history that allows you to rip the head off a Demolisher with your bare hands.

Talking of the powers, is it always player-controlled, or, like the zombies, is there an out-of-control reaction that occurs if players don’t get to a UV lamp, a shot (like in the first game), or something else?

I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s actually not controlled at all at the very beginning of the game. This is one of those elements of the game that are better experienced than read about, so I’ll avoid saying anything more here.

Is co-op in The Beast handled the same way as previous entries, with drop-in, drop-out, nameless-ally play?

Yes, it’s seamless, 4 player, drop-in/out, with – and that’s important to highlight – shared story progression. This means that when you join other players’ games, you not only progress the skills of your character, but also get to move the story forward for all players. Because it’s also possible to customize the look of your Crane, the whole party can, depending on players’ choices, look totally different – or consist of total lookalikes (which is also funny in its own way).

How many different weapons are available in the game?

Hundreds when it comes to melee weapons, a number of firearms split into five main types – pistols, SMGs, rifles, shotguns, and one we didn’t fully reveal yet – and several special weapons like grenade launchers or flamethrowers. Plenty of ways to kill a zombie!

And are there multiple endings again? How many?

We wanted the ending of Dying Light: The Beast to be decisive and to be canon; that’s why there’s only one version of the climax. But what a climax that is! The last mission is constantly scored highest in all of the playtests we have done so far.

With that said, are you ready to admit what the ‘canon’ ending of Dying Light 1 was, as we get close to Crane’s story continuing?

Dying Light: The Beast goes to great lengths to answer that question about what’s canon for Dying Light. If you play the game, it should settle the debate once and for all.

With Roger Craig Smith reprising his role once more, was there ever a point where that was in doubt? What was the plan if he – and therefore Crane – didn’t return? What did that story look like?

We contacted Roger before we wrote a single line of the new script; had his schedule been impossible, we would have shelved the Crane concept entirely and pivoted to a different protagonist. Thankfully, he was all-in, especially when he realized how unique this opportunity is – a seasoned voice actor can get back to a character he used to voice years ago, having a chance to express the growth and evolution of the character through how much his own skills and expertise have grown. Think Al Pacino returning to Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III.

Fans of the IP should naturally get involved, but what is the reason for newcomers to the franchise to play? What would you say to them? Do you have to know the story and lore of what came before to understand The Beast?

We do a lot to onboard the new player – both in terms of the narrative and the gameplay. Expect “previously on” and “story so far” and a number of optional tutorials that trigger if you’re unaware of some of the more intricate mechanics of the game. At the same time, the narrative setup in general helps us here a lot – Kyle Crane has been captured and kept out of this world for years, so he’s discovering this new world with new rules exactly in the same way as a player new to the series. Exposition flows naturally.

I actually encourage new players to jump in – we don’t have “3” in the title to not scare them too much. It’s the best Dying Light game we’ve ever done, most advanced technically, most polished, with the most sophisticated versions of our core mechanics – and a number of cool things added on top of that. If you’re willing to check what Dying Light is about, go for the newest, most premium outing.

Being that it started as a smaller-scale title, will you be supporting it post-release with DLC? If so, fully fledged expansions, small missions, or just costume packs?

The post-launch roadmap was not yet announced, as we focused our forces 100% on the launch of the game. We’re known for supporting our games for years, but we’ll be listening very closely to player feedback to see where the expectations of the community are.

Dying Light 3 is Absolutely Not a Guarantee

If not, is that because you’re working on Dying Light 3, or would that be 4 now?

I wonder if we’ll ever do another numbered version of the series. Will this be really needed? Does Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed really need that?

Has the decision been made regarding whether this will launch on Xbox Game Pass?

There are no plans to launch Dying Light: The Beast on Game Pass.

What’s the one thing you’re most nervous about the audience experiencing in this new-look version of the franchise?

The return of Kyle Crane, and if we’re doing him justice. I know we do, we’ve put in a lot of honest, passionate work into making sure Kyle Crane feels right, sounds right, plays right, but we understand how emotional players get about the character, and when you play with people’s emotions and nostalgia, you’re always walking on a rope. Stretched between two skyscrapers. With a horde of zombies beneath.

The debate surrounding physical media is massive right now. As it stands, will you be releasing a physical copy of the game or purely digital?

We’re going full digital for launch with a possible limited-run release of a physical copy later.

For you, what has changed about how you approach the franchise from both a design point of view and a lore point of view?

After 10 years of working on the series, we’re much more confident in understanding what makes Dying Light – Dying Light, so even when we experiment, we don’t shoot in the dark as much as we did before. Right now, we know that the core of a good Dying Light experience needs to be challenging, leaning towards survival, engaging them with their reflexes, and with their minds. This also means we’re stricter about scope: every mechanic must earn its keep. Lore-wise, we now plan arc outlines several games ahead, so each story feels complete yet leaves some seeds for the next chapters

Is there anything lore-wise that you regret adding to the two previous entries?

Not really. Every creative decision was justified at its time, and every reaction towards what we do is a lesson learned. It’s easy to say that this or that “should’ve been different” from the perspective of time, but every developer, including us, makes the best possible calls at the moment they’re made.

Will we be seeing any familiar faces from either the first or second game here?

You know that it’s a question I cannot answer, right? If I were to tell you, I’d have to hang you upside down in an abandoned basement and lure some zombies there to make sure you’ll keep your secret.

A new thing we’re trying here at Thumb Wars, but what is one misconception or idea that people have of what you do, that couldn’t be further from the truth and ultimately, really annoys you?

I’m not sure if “annoyed” is the right word – we try not to get annoyed by any type of feedback or opinion, but if I were to point out one misconception, I’d definitely say that players often think that “adding a feature” is just like flipping a switch or pulling a lever. Even a small change usually cascades through a number of game dev disciplines, be it design, animation, AI, UI, QA, etc. Nothing is really easy in game development. There’s actually a funny story behind that – as I tend to use the phrase “low hanging fruit” or “easy win” from time to time, but my producers tell me they have panic attacks when they hear me saying that, because they know how hard to pick the “low hanging fruits” usually are.

What’s something you’ve not told anyone, been able to share until now, or otherwise simply not been asked that you want to reveal to us?

There’s a fully explorable cave network under Castor Woods – the largest underground space we’ve ever built. We haven’t shown a second of it yet, but when you go there, there’s a man dressed up as a bat. He plays carols on flute and connects to the satellite network using an old Nokia he stole from a unicorn.

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That’s a joke, obviously. But one thing I can say is that when you’re playing Dying Light: The Beast, expect the unexpected. The game has lots of secrets to discover, and you have to dig deep to find some of them.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

As always, I’d like to thank the community for the 10 fantastic years they gave us on Dying Light. When we set out on this adventure, we didn’t expect that Dying Light would last that long and that it would reach more than 50 million players. Hope to see you all – cuatro jugadores, machetes en mano – when Dying Light: The Beast launches this summer.

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Dying Light: The Beast has been delayed a month since this interview took place, with the reason being revealed to be that Techland wants to release the best possible game, and an extra four weeks will ensure that. The release date is now September 19th on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

For more Thumb Wars interviews, go see what Pera Coda’s executive producer has to say on the Disco Elysium-inspired game, or what Pete Bottomley wants from his studio’s new game, ‘I Am Ripper’.