Shortly after a recent video showcased some of the brutal melee combat from upcoming title Dying Light: The Beast, director Nathan Lemaire has revealed more details about the game’s open world. In an interview with Insider Gaming, Lemaire spoke about how Dying Light: The Beast has “the most diverse world” that developer Techland might have ever made.
In Dying Light: The Beast, players will get to explore the area of Castor Woods, which features a host of different environments in itself, from dilapidated urban areas to lush forests, and everything in between. This, according to Lemaire, offers a lot of chances for exploration with every biome that a player might encounter.
“We wanted to come back to something that is more grounded, but we also wanted to explore some new settings,” said Lemaire. “With Castor Woods, we have created probably the most diverse world we have ever created for this franchise, mostly because you’ve got the Old Town, then an industrial biome, some farmland, or swampy areas, a village… What’s cool is that it creates a renewed experience across each biome.”
As for the density of Castor Woods in Dying Light: The Beast, Lemaire spoke about there being plenty of secrets to find, ranging from those hidden by the developers in secret locations, to secrets that can be found in the normal course of playing the game. The title will also include plenty of collectibles that also help further flesh out the world building.
“One thing that I like to repeat is that Castor Woods hides many secrets,” explained Lemaire. “We have lots of little things for players (to find). We have things that are hidden, like there are some maps that players can find that lead to secret locations, and they will find interesting things there. We have a lot of collectibles that expand the lore, some trivia about Castor Woods and the people there; it’s really full of little things like this.”
Lemaire’s comments tie back into what franchise director Tymon Smektala had said about the open world of Dying Light: The Beast back in June, where he described it as one of “the most dense open-world games” out there. Smektala spoke about how Techland was more interested in providing an open world that is dense rather than being outright large.
“Open worlds are not about scale.” said Smektala. “They’re about your feeling of being there. So we can create an open-world that’s maybe not as expansive, but if it’s hand-crafted, if it feels real, the player’s satisfaction of being in that world is much bigger.”
“Dying Light is probably one of the most dense open-world games on the market,” he continued, saying that the studio’s aim with the game is to make a world “where you are constantly looking around you, where you are constantly in the zone, in the feeling of it all.”
Dying Light: The Beast is being developed for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. While PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will be getting the title on September 19, the PS4 and Xbox One versions are slated for release at a later date.
