Interview: Techland and the future of Dying Light

Despite releasing nearly seven months ago, Techland is still full throttle when it comes to supporting their open-world first-person survival horror game, Dying Light. Though the developer did not attend E3 this year, GameZone still had the chance to talk with Techland about what has become their most popular title in company history.

Chatting with Dying Light producer Tymon Smektala, we asked about the future of Dying Light — DLC, modding, etc. — as well as a few of the studio's other games in development.

GameZone (GZ): Dying Light was recently touted as the most popular title in Techland’s history, with most recent sales reportedly around 4.5 million (maybe slightly less). Did you ever expect that kind of success with the game?

Techland's Tymon Smektala: Tricky question this one. We started this project hoping that it will top our previous efforts. We were also overwhelmed by the reception of the game at various industry events, and right before the release of the game we sort of felt that we created a game that could resonate with gamers well so there was optimism for sure. But did we expect Dying Light to be so huge? I don’t think so.

GZ: What’s the biggest thing that’s shocked you since the release of Dying Light?

Tymon: The huge amount of love and appreciation we got from the community. We weren’t expecting fan mail telling us we’ve made a game that’s “the best ever” in the eyes of quite a few people. That’s a fuel to our engines, and we’re extremely grateful for that. After all we are a not-so-big developer from a what-exactly-is-the-name-of-that-country?

GZ: With the release of the Bozak Horde, I believe that wrapped up everything that was included in Dying Light’s Season Pass; but, you’ve also mentioned plans to continue supporting the game well into later this year. Will this additional content be released for free, sold individually, or bundled with perhaps a Season Pass extension?

Tymon: We plan to support Dying Light for a quite bit, and there will be a variety of drops – free patches/updates with new content as well as bigger, paid things. I hope we’ll reveal what’s coming quite soon.

GZ: When you say you have more content planned for Dying Light, to what extent do you mean? Will these be major expansions that could further the story, or just smaller add-ons that bring new weapons, vehicles, outfits, etc.?

Tymon: Everyone wants us to take the story and the main character further and who are we to disagree? It’s a little too early to answer your question directly though. We looking into what we can do.

GZ: From player feedback, are you seeing desire for more single-player or multiplayer content?

Tymon: We see both, but the single-player/coop part of our game requires more attention because obviously it’s not as endless as our PvP multiplayer Be the Zombie mode is. We plan to address that in upcoming patches and expansions.

GZ: There were talks that you guys are looking into a full-fledged sequel — possibly Dying Light 2. Any update on that?

Tymon: Definitely not at this time. While Dying Light 2 seems like a no brainer, there’s a lot work done on the subject. I don’t want to jump the gun, so there’s nothing to announce at this time though.

If you do end up making a sequel, is there anything in Dying Light you’d like to improve on or change?

Tymon: Lots of things – both big and small. We know exactly what we want to fix, and I’m 100% sure that a potential sequel to Dying Light can be an amazing game. I’m sure we will go deeper into our existing systems trying to reinforce the pillars – the parkour would be more fluid and even more open, the combat more varied and more brutal, the day and night system more pronounced, the survival aspect more sophisticated. But what excites me most are the new things that we could add based on the talks we’ve had internally.

GZ: What have you learned from the release and response to Dying Light that you can use moving forward with development on future games?

Tymon: Don’t be afraid to make bold decisions. E.g. Even if cutting-off a huge chunk of your potential market looks scary, do it if you believe that you will hurt the overall experience e.g. for us keeping the game on old consoles was a major decision for us. Even if you’re wondering “what will people say”, do delay your game if you feel that you can make it substantially better with a few extra moths – at the end of the day people prefer great games over mediocre ones delivered on time.

GZ: In regards to development on the Xbox One and PS4 specifically, would you say they are more powerful or less powerful than you anticipated? Does the hardware allow for improvement or do you think they are already close to maxing out?

Tymon: There is still so much you can do with the new consoles, but you have to get creative with how you use and influence what’s available to you. At lot of the industry is still at the stage of “what else can we make this thing do?” so we’re all constantly learning new tricks and tweaks. Microsoft and Sony are also regularly pushing out tools and improvements for the hardware which just adds to our learning cycle. Close to maxing out? Not even remotely. What’s cool is that we finally get game designs made possible by the power of next-gen – things like the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor for example.

GZ: There were some complaints when Dying Light first released about a repetitive mission structure. Is this something you’re looking to address for a possible sequel?

I don’t really agree that we had a problem with repetitive mission structure – I know what you’re aiming at, but I would describe it other words. We’re aware of that perception though and it’s one of our main focuses to address in any of our upcoming games.

GZ: You mentioned that you’re looking to regularly expand and update the developer tools for modders with new features, assets, and functionalities. Can you get a bit more specific into the types of features you’re looking to bring to modders?

Tymon: Yeah, our engine and programming wizards are constantly pushing what they can add to the tools so that’s really cool from their side. They’re actually adding 2 big features really soon. The first is mesh importing. This will allow players to import their own objects into the game to interact with – I feel some weird stuff is coming our way. That’s slated to happen in a couple of weeks from now hopefully. After that our guys want to work on multiplayer support. Since co-op is a huge part of the Dying Light experience, this is something fans have been asking for quite relentlessly so we gotta give them what they want!

GZ: Beyond continued work on Dying Light and taking Hellraid back to the drawing board, are there any other projects in the works at the studio?

Tymon: Yeah currently we have a few teams working on various things. These are ideas and projects ranging from drawing board stage through to first and second internal prototypes already in place to test out. We’ll all just have to wait and see what comes out all this. It’s exciting to see where we might be going next.

GZ: I read you guys were working on a few mobile games; with the parkour-system so popular in Dying Light, I could definitely see some sort of endless runner mobile game. Just an idea…

Tymon: Hahaha. Now there’s an idea! I’ll pass it on to our mobile guys and get your name in the credits if it happens. 😉

GZ: With Dying Light only on Xbox One, PS4, and PC, and Hellraid also slated for that, are you guys officially done developing for Xbox 360 and PS3?

Tymon: Not entirely. If we can develop for those platforms, then we will. The scope the game will always determine if we choose to add PS3 and X360 to the mix. So it all depends on what projects come about. Though to be 100% realistic about it, you don’t see that many developers looking backwards in their plans for the future.

GZ: Any surprises in store for Gamescom that you can spoil or tease? 😉

Tymon: We didn’t attend E3 as an exhibitor this year. But we’ll be at Gamescom for sure with something cool to show. So stop by then and I’ll tell you more.