My hands-off Gamescom preview of Dying Light: The Beast has me grinning from start to finish. As Kyle Crane – the series' first hero, now freed following thirteen years of torment – makes his way through the overgrown expanse of Castor Valley in the thrilling dead of night, it feels like coming home. But The Beast is not the game anyone expected developer Techland to make next – least of all, I learn when I sit down with its key production leads, Techland itself.
"It started as a DLC for Dying Light 2, but we experienced a leak of the story last year," explains franchise director Tymon Smektała. As a result, it was a "no-brainer" for Techland to make the upcoming game totally free for all Dying Light 2 deluxe edition owners. "The community was very eager to learn everything about Dying Light, and they managed to dig out some very juicy and very crucial details about the narrative. So this made us think, 'Okay, what can we do with this?'"
