For any game developer, seeing the culmination of a decade's work finally come to fruition is an assumedly daunting thing. That's what Dying Light: The Beast is for Polish developer Techland. But despite all the pressures that come with shipping a game during one the most stacked years in the industry to date, game director Nethan Lemaire's confidence in the project seems to have outweighed his nerves.
"I knew we were making a good game," Lemaire tells me of his headspace as Techland approached its September 18 release date – which had already been moved forward a day as a little thank you to the one million fans who'd preordered it. "When we launched, I told the team beforehand that whatever happens, the game is good. No matter what happens and what the reception is, the game is good."
A week on from launch, the game hit an aggregate review score of 80 on Metacritic. "It basically confirmed the assumption that we were having about the state of the game," he says, highlighting the privilege of having released "the highest-rated Dying Light title" yet. There hasn't been much time to celebrate yet, though, especially given how the studio immediately mobilized on a swathe of post-launch updates and hotfixes in response to player feedback.
Warning: Spoilers for Dying Light: The Beast ahead!
