“I’d Love to See a True Creative Breakthrough” – An Interview With Techland’s Franchise Director for Dying Light
Techland is a Polish game studio best known these days for its Dying Light series, with the third entry, The Beast, out now on all major platforms. However, the company started in 1991 as a software distribution company and didn’t branch out into games until 2000, with the release of Crime City.
It’s since gone on to create multiple popular games, including several Dead Island and Call of Juarez titles. The first Dying Light was released in 2015 and quickly established a new franchise rooted in fluid parkour movement and brutal melee combat. This was followed by Dying Light 2 in 2022, with both entries still receiving regular updates from Techland.
Eneba spoke to Tymon Smektala, Dying Light Franchise Director, about the series’ inspirations, possible future, and who he’d trust with the franchise if he were to hand it to another studio.
I’d like to start by asking: what’s the inspiration, outside of games, for the Dying Light series, and especially for The Beast?
For Dying Light as a whole, we’ve always drawn from the broader zombie genre – films, books, comics, even old-school survival horror games. But with Dying Light: The Beast, we wanted to expand that palette. Oldboy inspired us through its raw, emotional sense of revenge; Stranger Things brought that blend of nostalgia, fear, and mystery in a small, desolate town we wanted to capture – it definitely helped shape the unsettling, almost surreal small-town vibe of Castor Woods where beauty and horror exist side by side.
That said, creativity doesn’t happen in isolation. Game development is a deeply personal, collaborative process, and inspiration often comes from unexpected, real-life experiences. A lot of what you see in Dying Light: The Beast – especially in level art – comes from our own lives: places we’ve visited, places we grew up in, etc.
You’ve mentioned elsewhere that you could see Dying Light branching out into other media. With Bloober Team in talks to turn Cronos: New Dawn into possible films or TV series, what medium would you like to explore with Dying Light?
I think the beauty of Dying Light is that over the years it has really defined its own DNA – its elements, tone, atmosphere, and rhythm are so distinct that they could translate into almost any medium. Of course, a movie or TV series would be the most natural next step, and we’d love to explore that when the right creative partner and timing come together. But honestly, the world of Dying Light is flexible enough for much more than that.
I could easily imagine a Dying Light-themed haunted house experience, a parkour training program inspired by the game’s movement system, or even a fitness app that channels that same energy of survival and escape. The core of Dying Light – fear, freedom, and physicality – lends itself to any format where players or viewers can feel the tension and adrenaline that define our universe.
Often when I speak to game devs I find out they’re either part of a thriving scene that isn’t really known outside the area, or they have close working relationships with studios that the general gaming public consider to be rivals.
What’s the scene like in Poland? Do you ever have any work crossover with Bloober Team, for example? (Such as bringing on board an artist from their side or lending them one of your programmers?)
The Polish game dev scene is incredibly vibrant – packed with talent, ambitious projects, and teams operating at a truly world-class level. Because most of us run large, complex productions, “lending” team members between studios isn’t really a thing (and it isn’t something we do at Techland either). What does happen a lot is mutual support: we cheer each other’s launches, swap lessons from the trenches at Polish industry meetups and conferences, and trade notes whenever we bump into one another at events around the world.
There’s plenty of respect. We pay attention to each other’s work, celebrate successes, and try to strengthen the broader ecosystem. I can tell you personally: I always buy Polish-made games – to play them of course, but also to show support for our home scene.
I really enjoy the first two Dying Light games (I haven’t had the chance to try The Beast yet) and the parkour and melee combat are always deeply satisfying. Are there any game mechanics you’ve developed for the series that you’d like to transplant into another genre, and if so, what would you like to do?
Dying Light games are built on such a strong mechanical foundation that, honestly, we could spin them into a dozen different genres if we wanted to. We have top-tier, physics-based parkour traversal; rich melee AND firearm combat; swimming and driving systems; a dynamic day–night cycle that completely changes how you play; plus looting, crafting, and survival mechanics. When you look at it that way, the possibilities are endless.
I can easily imagine a stealthy ninja-style game built on our parkour systems, a pure horror experience in more scripted, claustrophobic levels (though it would be a shame to lose the freedom our open worlds give players), or even something like a survival-focused experience or an off-road “Carmageddon”-style racer powered by our driving mechanics. But for now, we’re still very much focused on Dying Light. There’s a lot of creative ground left to cover within this universe – and we’re far from finished exploring it.
The Community Challenges are a nice touch, but what inspired their creation in the first place? And what kind of challenges can players look forward to taking part in across the franchise?
Community Challenges started as a way to celebrate our players, and they’ve grown into a statement about who the Dying Light community is at its core – a true Beast Pack. With Call of the Beast, we designed goals that spotlight camaraderie and that “no challenge is too hard if we do it together” spirit. The tasks lean into what our players do best – helping each other, pushing collective milestones, and showing up for the wider pack.
As you participate, you’ll earn themed rewards – car skins and weapons – that aren’t just cool trophies; they’re also great preparation for what’s coming next: New Game+, a tougher Nightmare difficulty, and a new end-game progression track, Legend Levels. All three are slated to land by the end of this year, so these challenges are both a celebration and a warm-up lap for the road ahead.
Dead Island was of course your first big zombie game franchise, with other studios taking over entries. If you could pick a studio to take over Dying Light, which studio would you choose? What style of game would you love to see Dying Light get turned into?
Hmm… that’s a tricky one – mostly because I’m not sure there are many studios out there that could make Dying Light better than we do, hehehe. But if I had to choose, I’d probably go with Naughty Dog, to see what kind of emotional depth and cinematic storytelling they could bring to the universe, or maybe Rockstar Games, just to watch them expand the open-world design and breathe life into every corner of the map in their own way.
As for genres, I’d love to see Dying Light reimagined as a pure survival game. Our mechanics – parkour, day–night cycle, scavenging, crafting – fit that style perfectly, and it would be fascinating to see the series lean even harder into the psychological and resource-driven aspects of surviving the apocalypse. But for now, we’re still having way too much fun making Dying Light ourselves.
I’d like to ask about Tencent. What’s it been like operating under their banner? How much input do they have on your projects?
Tencent has been a fantastic partner for us. What really stands out is their approach – they don’t come in to change a studio’s culture or creative DNA. Instead, they focus on understanding how you operate and then finding ways to support that, whether it’s through resources, technology, or strategic guidance.
For Techland, it’s been a great match. We’ve always had our own unique way of doing things, and Tencent’s support allows us to keep that independence while scaling up and working smarter. It’s a partnership that amplifies what we already do best rather than redefining it, and that’s exactly what you want when you’re trying to build high quality projects like Dying Light: The Beast and beyond.
When the news was announced, you also said that you were working on an “open world action-RPG in a fantasy setting” – can you give any further details on this?
I wish I could share more, but… no comments, sorry! For now, our focus is fully on Dying Light: The Beast and making sure it gets the attention it deserves.
If you had the choice to continue the Dying Light series but with a limited budget, or resurrect one of your older games/franchises with an unlimited budget, which would you choose, and why?
Oh, that’s a tough one! I absolutely love Dying Light, and I’d always want to keep expanding that universe – even if it meant doing so with a limited budget. But you should never ask a game developer if they’d like an unlimited budget, because while it sounds like a dream, it actually removes a lot of the creative boundaries that you usually have to face.
But…my background is in game design, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the best creativity often comes from working within limits. Constraints force you to make bold, clever decisions – to innovate rather than just throw money at a problem. So yes, I’d go with the limited-budget Dying Light project. It would probably be smaller in scale, but full of heart, passion, and smart design.
Lastly, what’s your opinion on the state of the industry, from your place within it?
That’s a big question – the industry is in such an interesting, and honestly, turbulent place right now. On one hand, games are bigger and more ambitious than ever. We’re seeing incredible technical achievements, powerful storytelling, and a growing recognition of games as a true art form. On the other hand, there’s also a lot of uncertainty – studios closing, layoffs, rising production costs, and a tendency for many companies to play it safe creatively.
From my point of view, I’d really love to see a true creative breakthrough again – something that challenges the norms of what games can be. Right now, a lot of titles are essentially iterations of familiar ideas, just wrapped in new technology or formats. Don’t get me wrong – refinement is great – but I miss those moments where a game completely redefined the medium. I believe the next big leap won’t just come from tech like AI or photorealism, but from bold creative thinking – from teams willing to take risks and surprise players again.
Dying Light: The Beast is out now on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S. It follows the original game’s protagonist, Kyle Crane, as he escapes a mad scientist’s lab and, using new undead-related abilities, sets about trying to exact revenge on his tormentor.
