That’s because it’s bringing a long list of balancing changes to systems governing your hunger (like reducing the drain while sleeping) and recovery from it alongside other changes like nifty new additions to vendor shops, legendary upgrades for DLC weapon blueprints, and some clever changes to you inventory management that ensure you don’t miss out on new gear thanks to a shortage of space in your inventory and stash. The complete list, which you can check below, showcases Techland’s determination to ensure Restored Land is as close to perfect as it can be for its players.

For our part, we were quite happy with what the update has brought to the table, its new modes and other additions making the game feel fresh enough to warrant another playthrough. Check out our thoughts here. Dying Light: The Beast is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC – head here for our review of the launch version.

Hotfix 1.6.1 – Restored Land Edition (1.6)

• Reduced hunger drain when sleeping
• Slower overall hunger depletion
• “Very Hungry” and “Famished” states now trigger later
• Vendors now offer improvised food bars
• Weapon Blueprints from DLC bundles can now be upgraded to Legendary rarity
• When receiving a new weapon during a cutscene with a full inventory, the lowest-quality weapon is automatically moved to the stash
• If both inventory and stash are full, the lowest-quality weapon is dropped on the ground
• “Better Be Safe” and “Peace Bringer” achievements no longer auto-complete
• Night chases rebalanced – Level 1 chases are now slightly easier to escape
• Increased chances to loot rags and bandages from Biters and Virals
• Fixed the crossplay connection between Steam and Epic
• Fixed the issue with amount of ammo that the Player can loot from ranged human enemies being capped
• Fixed the issue with Player dropping equipped weapon after entering Slasher arena
• Fixed the issue with hunger meter missing throughout the fight with The Beast
• Fixed the issue with Alpha Volatile sometimes not spawning during Chase sequences on Restored Land
• Fixed the issue with “Days Survived” being counted after starting a race
• Fixed the issue with Leaderboards sometimes missing
• Fixed the issue with message about Restored Area always appearing after loading a save
• Fixed the issue with some encounters being unresponsive
• Fixed the issue with Items Found values in the Leaderboard section
• Fixed the broken Night Cycle after quitting to the main menu during challenge
• Fixed a few collisions in new Roadkill Rallies
• Fixed the issue with item stacks being incorrectly subtracted while moved to the Stash
• Fixed the issue with Player receiving the achievement “Apex Predator” without killing a Volatile after a cutscene in “One flew over the Volatiles’ nest” mission
• Fixed the issue with SFX missing after failing to load a broken save file
• Fixed the issue with infinite death loop happening after Player gets out of map/playable area during Roadkill Rally
• Fixed various unresponsive NPC’s while playing in Coop

Headlining the update is the eponymous Restored Land mode, which is meant to be a new way to experience Dying Light: The Beast all over again. When enabled, the mode introduces a way for players, once more taking on the role of Kyle Crane, to restore Castor Woods to something at least a little closer to its former glory. Zombies killed in Restored Land mode won’t ever respawn. On the other hand, resources you’ve already looted won’t come back either, which introduces an interesting double-edged sword. That means you have to be much more careful when moving through any given area. Sure, you can eventually clear out a place well enough so that zombies can’t ever come back. But at the same time, you also end up losing the easiest way in the game to get your hands on basic resources like crafting materials: the zombies themselves.

The balance is skewed even further against the player thanks to resources being a lot more scarce, and repeatable activities that often tend to be a great way to grind out more materials can only be completed once. When it comes to actually playing through the mode, these limitations create some genuinely great moments where I had to stop and think through my next moves. Sure, I could always use some extra crafting materials, and I was certainly strong enough to take on a certain Dark Zone. But then I had to ask myself: “Do I really need those materials right now, or would I be better off waiting instead of draining my already-limited flashlight battery?” Restored Land mode, for all intents and purposes, turned Dying Light: The Beast—otherwise a pretty fun power fantasy—into a much more cerebral experience.

While the update also added more ways to ramp up the difficulty, like a One Life mode that results in permadeath, I chose not to use them, since I was already having a hard enough time trying to survive as it is. I haven’t finished a full Restored Land playthrough yet, so I can’t really comment on the usefulness of the rewards, but doing so will likely take me much longer than my first playthrough, since it encourages a slower pace thanks to resource constraints. I did find the act of taking out all zombies in an area quite rewarding, however, and it was a lot of fun to take a leisurely stroll through these zones without having to worry about anything. My only real complaint with the whole experience was the fact that co-op—one of my favorite features of the game overall—isn’t available in Restored Land.

"When it comes to actually playing through the mode, these limitations create some genuinely great moments where I had to stop and think through my next moves."

The update also brought with it one of my favorite new side-activities—Roadkill Rallies. Strewn around the more open parts of Castor Woods, the Roadkill Rally activity revolves entirely around your driving skill and rewards you based on how many zombies you can run over from point A to point B. While simple in concept and execution, Roadkill Rallies become a fun way to compete with friends on a leaderboard. And as an added cherry on top, you don’t have to be playing in Restored Land mode, which also means you can take on Roadkill Rallies in co-op.

Aside from Restored Land mode itself, the update’s meatiest additions are a host of new event-based side quests. Rather than seeking them out on the map and making your way to them, however, these new quests tend to pop up depending on the area you’re passing through and what route you’re taking. These new quests largely revolve around telling small stories about what might have happened to nearby survivors. The studio has noted that these quests were added in an attempt to “make the journey between main quest moments more engaging,” and I think these new quests achieve that quite well. They feel like a natural part of your journey as you parkour or drive your way through Castor Woods, and can often add to the sense of place that the setting has always excelled at.

What helps even more is the fact that these quests don’t even tend to be particularly long. They tend to be relatively simple affairs, often revolving around a single fight or a couple of conversations before you return to your journey. They can be quite varied, ranging from a simple inter-faction battle over a truck full of useful resources, to finding new outposts set up by the Baron’s forces. These aren’t really meant to tell any deep and emotional stories on their own. Rather, they act more like quick encounters that help flesh out the world of Castor Woods, and their relatively dynamic nature also has the added benefit of making the open-world game feel more alive.

"These new quests largely revolve around telling small stories about what might have happened to nearby survivors."

I’d also be remiss not to mention the many improvements Dying Light: The Beast has received through its extensive post-launch support. My favorite of these has been the added depth to the parkour systems. Rather than making any single, sweeping change to the traversal, however, the studio instead added a range of smaller improvements through additional animations that are only really obvious to those who may have already spent some time with the game. This has resulted in on-foot traversal generally feeling a lot smoother. Additions like Legend Levels for level-capped players also provide more excuses to just hang around in Castor Woods to take on some of its tougher challenges.

Generally speaking, Techland did some fantastic work with Restored Land, breathing new life into the already-fantastic Dying Light: The Beast. Thanks to the plethora of new content, new players have plenty to sink their teeth into, while those of us who had already considered ourselves “done” with the game have a great reason to come back: its headline new mode for fresh playthroughs. The new event-based side quests also offer some fantastic new opportunities for environmental storytelling depending on how you approach them and where they appear, and Roadkill Rallies are yet another great way to make traveling between faraway points more interesting.

When it comes to PC performance, Dying Light: The Beast already ran very well, and Restored Land hasn’t slowed it down one bit. With most of the visual settings cranked up to max, I was able to maintain steady frame rates of well over 60 FPS while playing at a resolution of 2560×1440. This was on an upper-mid-range PC featuring an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Kyle’s going to have to be very careful in this new take on the Castor Woods, as resources are now rarer and more pricey, while an optional permadeath mode can make even the slightest mistake very costly indeed. However, it’s not as bleak as it looks, as high-risk areas remain blissfully clear of zombies once you take them all out, which applies to zombies out in the open world as well. It’s going to be a chaotic yet rewarding gameplay loop, and if you already own a copy of the game, it’s available as a free update.

This is an edition we would recommend without hesitation, as we found the base game to be quite the entertainer and a worthy sequel to its predecessors. The new edition seems like it’s additions are all meaningful changes that can build on an already excellent gameplay loop to take it to new heights. More information on the new edition can be found here.

Described as changing the “rules of gameplay,” it offers “a highly challenging solo-only mode” that promises “the ultimate survival experience.” Restored Land essentially makes the open world of Castor Woods persistent. It means that zombies cleared from an area won’t respawn.

However, it also means that loot and resources won’t reappear, and activities such as convoys, dark zones, etc. can’t be repeated. To make things even more challenging, there are limited supplies overall, and vendors will charge higher prices. If that’s not enough, you need to deal with “intensified” hunger and flashlight requirements. Failing to keep Kyle Crane well-fed will result in penalties, and you’ll need to replace the flashlight’s batteries.

For the truly hardcore, there’s an option to enable One Life, which does pretty much what it says: Die once, and that’s it. You’ll need to start all over.

Completing a Restored Land run will unlock “prestigious items” and “visible recognition” (likely a skin), but that’s not all. New Roadkill Rallies provide fresh challenges for those driven (pun fully intended) to race against the clock and splatter any infected along the way. Completing this unlocks an “amazing reinforced version of a car built for even more distraction in the open world.”

You can also look forward to numerous improvements and new Achievements, quest encounters and finishers. Performance is also getting a noticeable bump, so stay tuned when Restored Land goes live later this week (and check out the behind-the-scenes trailer courtesy of IGN below).

Obviously, you’ll discover new weapons to help against the very worst that Castor Woods has to throw at you, but there are also Legend levels. Think of these as Prestige levels, unlocked after hitting level 15. Any XP earned will feed into Legend levels, which increase health and provide Legend Points to spend on, well, more health, Beast Mode and damage.

Best of all, playing on higher difficulties and New Game+ tiers provides more XP. But what’s risk without the reward? Progressing through the Legend Levels will unlock 22 new weapons, 12 gear pieces (making up two outfits) and new Legendary skins for your vehicles.

If that wasn’t enough, Update 1.4 introduces ray tracing, with Low to Ultra settings (Frame Generation is automatically enabled for the latter, though). There are also three new finishers for specific weapon types. A welcome surprise, to be sure.

A double XP is currently ongoing, so if you’re looking to jump back into Dying Light: The Beast, now is the best time. If you’re still on the fence, check out our review for more details.

Call of the Beast is the first in this list of features, and has already been added to Dying Light: The Beast. It is essentially a global community initiative with challenges that players have to work together to accomplish in each of their individual runs through the game. All in all, there are 22 total goals that players will have to complete, with one of them already having wrapped up and the second one being under way.

Completing these goals will get players quite a few rewards, with there being a secret Legendary Reward coming to players if at least 17 of the goals are completed. Hitting 20 goals will reward all players that participated in at least one of the goals with all of the weekly rewards. The current goal has players tasked with taking on biters with dropkicks; completing this will reward them with na 80s inspired “Sunset” car skin and a matching machete weapon.

New Game+ and Legend Levels are both part of Techland’s efforts to boost the replayability of Dying Light: The Beast. New Game+ will allow players to start up a fresh playthrough after having wrapped up the story, while still hanging on to their XP progression, skills and items from the previous runs. Each run through New Game+ will add new challenges to the game, encouraging players to get even stronger as they spend more time with the open-world title.

Along the way, players will also be able to earn Legend Levels, with a host of Legend Skills that can be unlocked. These additions will also come alongside a new tier of weapon rarity which has its own visual flair, which can be earned by getting higher Legend Levels.

After releasing New Game+ and Legend Levels, Techland will also bring Nightmare Mode to the title, which will essentially be a new high-difficulty mode that introduces challenges in more unique ways than just boosting enemy health and damage numbers. Nightmare Mode will include new gameplay mechanics as well, since the studio wants to tie it in with a more realistic survival-based gameplay loop. The developer has also noted that it will be making some tweaks to the Volatiles in Dying Light: The Beast, with the post noting Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and Alien: Isolation as direct inspirations for these tweaks.

Ray Tracing is one of the many additions part of the technical and visual upgrades that Techland wants to bring to Dying Light: The Beast. The studio has noted that it will continue to roll out updates and improvements to the title over the course of its 11-week plan, which also happens to be the first crossover event for the game. October 31 will mark the start of Dying Light: The Beast and PUBG Mobile, with players getting the chance to earn items from the battle royale, including the Killing Pan, Battle Royale Bat, and the Marked Man outfit.

Dying Light: The Beast is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. There are also plans to bring the title to PS4 and Xbox One at a later date. For more details, check out our review.

Techland is also looking to implement ray tracing on PC, new weapon executions and other visual and quality-of-life improvements. There’s even a collaboration with PUBG Mobile planned. In the meantime, players can partake in Call of the Beast, an 11-week series of community challenges.

Starting today and ending on January 7th, 2026, it promises 22 rewards, including weapons and car skins. Complete 17 out of 22 goals, and a “secret” Legendary will become available once the event ends. If the community as a whole completes 20 goals, players who participated in a single challenge will receive all rewards.

Head here for more details. Dying Light: The Beast is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, with Xbox One and PS4 versions coming later this year. Check out our review and stay tuned for more updates.

Feedback from the title led to the latest release having more focus and clarity, especially when compared to the more ambitious second game. “The biggest lesson was clarity of focus and attention to details,” he said. “Dying Light 2 Stay Human was ambitious, maybe too ambitious in some areas, and while we are proud of what we achieved, we also learned that sometimes less is more.”

Further in the interview, Smektała spoke more about how Techland decided to trim down the fat from Dying Light: The Beast. The goal, he noted, was to deliver an overall tighter experience that would have the same level of grounded, intense and emotional gameplay and story that made the original Dying Light a fan favourite.

“For Dying Light: The Beast, we stripped away the noise to deliver a tighter, more purposeful experience,” he explained. “The game knows what it wants to be: intense, grounded, and emotional. We have also taken community feedback, every little detail of it, to heart in terms of combat feel, movement precision, and pacing.”

Smektała had spoken about Techland having learned quite a few lessons from Dying Light 2 Stay Human back in June. In an interview, he had spoken about how, for the second game in the franchise, the studio had ended up sacrificing “some of the Dying Light DNA”.

“Our fans were telling us ‘that’s not it, that’s not what made you so special,’” Smektala said, referring to the studio wanting to provide a more polished AAA experience with Dying Light 2 Stay Human.

“We want to deliver both,” he further explained, referring to Dying Light: The Beast. “We want to deliver the AAA quality, but at the same time, we want to deliver proof that our mojo is not gone, that our mojo is not there, and we know what makes Dying Light, Dying Light. And if players say ‘wow, this feels like Dying Light 1, and it looks so amazing, it’s such a polished game’, then I think we’ll be very, very happy.”

Since its release just last month, Dying Light: The Beast has proven to be quite a hit. While Techland hasn’t revealed any sales data for the title, it had released an infographic just last week, confirming that more than 25 million hours had been cumulatively been spent by players in the game.

“Every jump, every strike, every scream fuels Kyle’s quest for vengeance,” wrote Techland in its social media post. “You’ve pushed the limits cutting down countless foes and parkouring vast distances, and as a community you left a mark on Castor Woods.”

Dying Light: The Beast is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review. The title is also slated to make its way to PS4 and Xbox one later on.

“Every jump, every strike, every scream fuels Kyle’s quest for vengeance,” wrote Techland in its social media post. You’ve pushed the limits cutting down countless foes and parkouring vast distances, and as a community you left a mark on Castor Woods.”

Along with this, the studio has also revealed that players have taken out almost 2.3 billion zombies during their time with Dying Light: The Beast. Of this, over 763 million kills can from players in the US, while players in China contributed to over 412 million kills. Players have also spent over 189 cumulative hours surviving during night time. As Techland puts it, that amounts to 21,574 years having been “spent in the dark with volatiles breathing down your neck”.

As for more granular gameplay details, the parkour system of Dying Light: The Beast has contributed to players having run for over 152 million kilometres, while 19.6 million kilometres were travelled by car. When taking on zombies, players have thrown 23.6 million molotovs, and those using guns have landed 59.5 million headshots. Melee combat has also been quite popular, with 176.7 million dropkicks and 112.8 million finishers having been landed.

Dying Light: The Beast has seemingly been incredibly popular right off the bat. Shortly after its release, analysis firm Alinea Analytics had published a report indicating that the open-world game had sold more than a million copies through Steam alone. Total sales in its first week of release have reportedly added up to over 1.5 million, with around 500,000 sales coming in from the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.

The analysis firm also noted some interesting statistics, including the fact that 82 percent of the PC players of Dying Light: The Beast had also played the first game in the franchise, while 77 percent had played Dying Light 2 Stay Human. It is worth noting that, shortly after its launch, Dying Light: The Beast hit an impressive peak player count on Steam, with 121,222 concurrent players on September 21.

Dying Light: The Beast was officially released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on September 18. While it might be only exclusive to current-gen consoles for the time being, Techland has confirmed that the open-world title will also be making its way to PS4 and Xbox One later this year. For more details about the game, check out our review, where we gave it a score of nine out of ten thanks to its traversal systems, open world, interesting story and good balance between survival and horror aspects. Also check out our thoughts on how it offers a different take on horror from Silent Hill f.

Throughout the decades of horror games, films, comic books and novels, it’s interesting how some of the best horror stories can be so different from each other, yet often find the same destination. Halloween is nowhere near, but two of the best horror games released this year – Dying Light: The Beast and Silent Hill f – found their way to audiences within the same week.

And aside from their genre, they couldn’t be more different. Techland’s “totally not Dying Light 3 but considered as Dying Light 3” sequel is a first-person survival horror with parkour mechanics, guns (albeit with limited bullets), and the new Beast mode, where the returning Kyle Crane can rip enemies apart. It’s also an open-world title with various secrets, collectables, and side quests with a unique night component where the hunter becomes the hunted as Volatiles overrun Castor Woods, and it’s all you can do to run and survive.

On the other hand, NeoBards Entertainment and Konami have crafted a survival horror that relies more on psychological and visual torment. Character artist kera was roped in to create all kinds of disturbing monstrosities while Ryukishi07 penned the ever-winding, emotionally exhausting narrative. Then you have the gameplay, which is about exploration and puzzle-solving as much as close-quarters combat (and even then, running away can sometimes prove the better option). Despite all this, the journey is fairly linear.

Even when united under the same banner of horror, the sheer difference between these protagonists is so stark. Kyle Crane, a former mercenary turned lab experiment, escapes and seeks revenge against the Baron. Shimizu Hinako, a schoolgirl in 1960s Ebisugaoka that ends up trapped in a nightmarish fog, unraveling her inner demons in the Otherworld for some unknown purpose. But even with how different both experiences can be, they share a common horror theme: Powerlessness.

No, it’s not just because both characters tend to run away from overwhelming circumstances, or that both games encourage doing so in different ways. Rather, it’s how they treat that emotion to induce various frights.

Think about it. As powerful as Kyle Crane can be, scaling buildings, leaping from one rooftop to another, turning into a venerable beast that can dismantle Chimeras with enough effort, it’s the result of complete and utter powerlessness for years, a feeling that haunts him as he hunts the Baron. Heck, it’s a feeling that’s affected him since the first Dying Light’s events – look no further than the beads near his watch, a constant reminder of those he failed to save.

And while the world could be treated as one big sandbox to parkour through, dispatching threats with medieval swords and flamethrowers, or just hopping in a car and playing undead Carmageddon, it’s also one that’s effectively finished. The low number of survivors, the complete and utter collapse of civilization as we know it, the rise and reign of criminal elements who treat others as little more than zombie chow – for all his overwhelming strength, Kyle’s best tool is running. To essentially delay fighting and prioritize his own survival, which is most obvious when avoiding Volatiles at night.

Hinako’s situation is oppressive in a different way, but her worldview is still one that’s devoid of hope. Despite showing signs of artistic talent, she’s grown into a quiet, reserved student whose only saving grace is her height and joining the track team (which is a good way to explain her stamina). Without delving into spoilers, her home situation isn’t very good, and there’s a deep aspect of self-loathing and hatred for the world around her. In many ways, Ebisugaoka is a prison, and the only person she could really rely on, her sister Junko, got married and left town. The fact that everyone views the latter in such a positive light only contributes to Hinako’s low self-esteem.

Nevertheless, Hinako still emotionally rebels against it all. Even in the Otherworld, she doesn’t simply lie down and die. When confronted by horrors beyond explanation (and make no mistake – everything you’ve seen thus far is just a teaser for what’s to come), she picks up pipes, axes, bats and more…unconventional weaponry to fight back. Despite all this, Hinako won’t stand around and try to fight everything in her path, running away when the situation makes sense.

Ironically, some aspect of a beast begins to emerge within her as well, one that serves as a source of power while also resulting from her overall powerlessness. Both titles rely on weapon durability to force players to weigh their fight or flight options, with Silent Hill f imposing stricter conditions due to the lack of weapon replacements and repair kits.

The result is the same, but it begs the question: Why? Well, powerlessness is a highly resonant theme for almost anyone. Video games are all the more equipped to leverage this because they offer direct ways to try and control the situation, gamifying and streamlining elements of character growth, even if the overall world’s scenario can appear immutable. Like any good story, however, powerlessness isn’t just there to induce fright, stressing us out over the things we can’t change. Instead, both titles remind us that it isn’t something to be afraid of (even if the world itself is on the brink of collapse).

Both Kyle and Hinako are trying to control and effect change on things within their grasp. Maybe in the end, it doesn’t even matter, and their impact will be negligible, but it’s not something that players can simply say “screw it” and ignore. Is it because of progression, where upgrades give that greater sense of power and overcoming the obstacles in our path? Or the gameplay, where one is addicted to the resulting horror from these scenarios (and the intentionally lackluster resources)?

Personally, I think it boils down to wanting to see the character’s story out. We don’t know if Kyle will end up alive at the end of Dying Light: The Beast – his luck in that department has held up over the years, but it’s frayed. We don’t know if Hinako will survive the ordeals of the Otherworld and Ebisugaoka, emerging as the person she wants to be. Silent Hill isn’t exactly known for letting its victims escape in one piece, either physically or mentally.

Yet, as powerless as we, the players, can feel in their stories, we’re still along for the ride, either out of empathy, morbid curiosity or, perhaps, the craziest possibility of all, in the sheer hope that things will turn out alright. If pure terror is a dark tunnel that stretches on and on, seemingly without end, hope is the light at the end, that maybe the nightmare will cease, if only temporarily.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.