While many of Dying Light: The Beast‘s new and improved features are cause for celebration, the inclusion of vehicles stands out as a strong selling point. Sure enough, parkour is a key pillar of the franchise, and Dying Light: The Beast isn’t forgetting that. But the vehicles of Dying Light: The Beast are certainly something special.
At first glance, it would seem that vehicles would be detrimental to the parkour-oriented gameplay of Dying Light: The Beast. However, there are two reasons fans shouldn’t be quick to dismiss them. As long as Techland delivers on all of its promises, they are another tool used to navigate the zombie-populated Castor Woods and not a replacement for anything that makes it great. They’re realizing a portion of the zombie fantasy that the first and second titles just didn’t.
Game Rant speaks with Dying Light: The Beast’s Techland about gameplay details, hidden mechanics, and world-building touches fans might have missed.
Dying Light: The Beast is So Similar to The Following It Almost Hurts (In a Good Way)
Dying Light‘s Following DLC introduced a vehicle into the game, one that players had to manage, as they navigated the game’s survival mechanics. If there’s one classic video game experience, it’s
fighting zombies with all kinds of melee weapons, shooting zombies with various firearms, and running zombies over with vehicles. Of course, Dying Light and Dying Light 2: Stay Human fulfilled their niches of the zombie fantasy, but The Following was special through its story, its unique zombies, and its navigation of the world. The Following is, arguably, some of the best content in the Dying Light franchise, so the fact that Dying Light: The Beast carries a similar vibe is only good for the experience.
Of course, no matter how special The Following is, it is quite old now. It was released in 2016, and 9-year-old mechanics wouldn’t really work for Dying Light: The Beast. Techland is improving the experience to ensure that vehicle gameplay is on par with the experience it wants. Techland has envisioned Dying Light: The Beast as Dying Light 3, and while a proper threequel could certainly happen someday, that means Dying Light: The Beast is a full-fledged DL experience. Techland’s approach is to ensure that everything feels fully tuned, so vehicles are not just a simple attachment to the game, but a full-fledged experience themselves. As Tymon Smektala told Game Rant, everything from audio design to impact was considered:
“One thing that makes our diving model truly unique is how well it handles hitting and driving over zombies…We spent considerable time tweaking the physics of these interactions as well as the sounds that accompany them. Thwump, splotches, and squeaks were onomatopoeias we used most often in these discussions.”
Dying Light: The Beast’s Vehicles Have Strong Developers Behind Them
Having experienced developers doing things they are experienced in is no doubt the strength of any studio. Many single-player studios have tried traveling down the live service tunnel before, for it not to pan out well (as just an example). The same can be said of any feature, so seeing how Dying Light has evolved over the years is good for its core pillars. Vehicles, however, are not unserviced either. Smektala pointed to a part of Techland’s history that few fans today may know:
“Techland was making rally and arcade racing games almost 20 years ago, and one series—Xpand Rally—actually had a very competitive driving model, praised by the rally community, so it only lacked licenses for real cars to be remembered as fondly as the Colin McRae series. The lead programmer that works with his team on the driving model for Dying Light: The Beast was one of the key people involved in the production of Xpand Rally and other racing games we produced, so half-jokingly, we can say that the driving in Dying Light: The Beast was 20 years in the making.”
While Smektala explains that it was a half-joke, the half that isn’t is because of the pedigree delivering this experience. Better vehicles in Dying Light: The Beast mean better gameplay, and better gameplay across the board means a better zombie experience.
Techland always aims high, and its pedigree follows suit. Some years ago, Smektala told Game Rant: “We want to be considered one of the greats of the zombie genre.” Make no mistake, everything in Dying Light: The Beast is crafted with the ambition of Techland and its unique understanding of the zombie genre, and adding to that experience with another iconic part of the zombie fantasy is going to go a long way.
