Techland has been quite well-regarded thanks to the studio’s penchant for offering long-term post-launch support for its titles. Former franchise director of Dying Light, Tymon Smektała, believes that this is a major reason behind the series staying relevant despite there being a seven-year gap between the release of the original Dying Light and its sequel, Dying Light 2 Stay Human. According to GamesRadar, Smektała spoke about this during a Digital Dragon panel, where he also admitted that the studio’s post-launch support plans at the time were “actually quite limited”.
The reason behind this, he said, was that the studio wanted to focus on releasing the game first, and then it could “respond maybe to some potential bugs […], and then focus on the release of the two DLCs for that quarter.” These plans, which were originally minor, ended up having a knock-on effect where the studio started getting a loyal fanbase.
“Players are there, they are excited, they are supporting us, they want more of the game, so we did more. The appetite grew, they wanted even more, so we kept going,” he said. “And, in the process, we had created a business model that was very unique at that time, and it’s a triple-A game with long tail post-launch support.” Techland would then expand this idea further out into what it called its “10 in 12” initiative. Essentially, it would work on releasing 10 free DLCs over the course of 12 months.
“Then it continued, and then it continued, and in the end, the support lasted for 10 years,” he said. “Last year, we released a graphics update for Dying Light called Retouched.”
However, this form of long-tail post-launch support may not work well for every studio out there, especially in the AAA gaming industry. Smektała has acknowledged that many studios would find this difficult, especially with a lack of continuous revenue. However, it did make sense for Techland at the time, he said, since “it keeps the game on the hard drive, it builds the community trust, it makes the game sell for longer, and you can keep the price at a high level.”
Ultimately, Smektała said that this largely comes down to planning and management. “If you can plan the production around this wisely, the game will give back.”
Smektała announced that he was stepping down from his role as franchise director of Dying Light just last month. After having worked in the role at Techland for almost 13 years, he acknowledged that his life was “moving into a new chapter”.
“Thank you to all the talented people of Techland I’ve had the chance to work with – across both development and publishing – for the passion, energy, and shared ambition to make Dying Light the ultimate zombie experience,” he said in his statement. “We made it happen, together!”
“And to our amazing community: your love, engagement, and vocal support have always been our North Star. You helped shape what Dying Light became.”
More recently, Smektała also spoke about how the release of Dying Light: The Beast taught Techland that “quality beats quantity”.
Dying Light: The Beast is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review.
