Dying Light: The Beast is a revenge story for Kyle Crane: 'basically like the movie Old Boy's premise, but with zombies'

Techland announced the next game in the Dying Light series today at Gamescom's Opening Night Live. It's called Dying Light: The Beast, and it takes place about a decade after the original game and before the events of Dying Light 2.

It also brings back Kyle Crane, the main character of the original Dying Light—though he didn't live happily ever after. Speaking to PC Gamer, Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektala laid out the story that starts with Crane, after being held captive and experimented on for over a decade, escaping and seeking revenge.

"Half-jokingly, you could say that this is basically like the movie Old Boy's premise, but with zombies," Smektala said.

You may remember some buzz back in 2022 around Techland saying Dying Light 2 would take 500 hours to fully complete, and the natural skepticism that came along with that claim. According to Smektala, The Beast doesn't have those kinds of aspirations. 

"It's going to be basically a fully fledged open world adventure in the world of Dying Light, very similar to Dying Light 1 or Dying Light 2, though slightly more compact," Smektala said. "My favorite joke about it is that it is like a double espresso, because it's short, but super powerful, and full of everything that Dying Light does best." Smektala said he expects the main story to take around 10 hours to complete, adding that "it all depends on your gameplay style. There's lots of additional content [and an] environment that's very unique, full of secrets."

As for Crane's beast powers, Smektala didn't want to reveal too much at this stage. Crane will have a new skill tree that will "make Kyle more than just a human," allowing him to "traverse more effectively, jump higher, run faster," is all he was willing to say.

Dying Light: The Beast was originally intended to be DLC for Dying Light 2: Stay Human, but after two years of development Techland decided it was big enough to be its own standalone game. It will be free to owners of Dying Light 2: Stay Human Ultimate Edition.

The new game also won't mean the end of support for Dying Light 2. "We have promised that Dying Light 2 will be supported for five years, and we are sticking to this promise," Smektala said. "We still have some updates planned for this year."