Dying Light is the upcoming first-person survival horror title that’s set to arrive from Techland and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
Anticipation is building up for Dying Light ahead of it's release next year. The game is basically a zombie themed title that’s set in a vast and dangerous open world, where, during the day, players will explore an expansive urban environment that’s been overrun by a vicious outbreak.
Players will look to scavenge the world for supplies and crafting weapons to defend against the growing infected population with a massive focus on free-running mechanics.
However, with the game set to arrive sometime in 2014, there’s hardly any concrete detail that’s been revealed about the game thus far. But it seems like all that’s about to change with new details on Dying Light already arriving.
A number of team members from the games developing team were recently in an interview with Gamingbolt regarding the game where they spoke about a number of aspects of the game.
Dying Light is set to feature dynamic day-night cycles, where players will need to use their in-game stealth tactics and ‘dark sense’ to avoid the infected, once it gets dark. But how exactly will that work out?
Producer Tymon Smektala explained: “The sense – it’s not the final name by the way – allows you to ‘feel’ (by hearing, smelling, etc.) important things in the environment: enemies, hidden objects, etc. You will also be able to upgrade that special survivor’s awareness throughout the game.”
And alongside the dynamic day-light switching, one of the major core gameplay mechanics of the game involves the free-running feature where enemies can be taken down with the help of the surrounding environments. On asked as to how this free-running feature will work out in the game and how it can make the gameplay dynamic, Smektala stated: “It makes the gameplay dynamic because… well, running is one of the most dynamic things human beings can do without the help of any machinery.”
“And because our heroes have already spent a couple of months in the quarantined city of Harran, and they know the resources are scarce, they’ve found some very smart ways to fight zombies and increase their chances of survival. Using environment is just one of them,” he added.
Additionally, as far as the in-game mission structure is concerned, there has been some confusion regarding whether the game will offer a ‘true’ open world where players can look to play out the main missions aside the other side missions.
To simplify this confusion, writer Rafal W. Orkan explained: “Sure, you are completely right. Even if the quests, be it main or side quests, share the same story background, they can be completed independently. It’s up to the player.”
He added that when players opt for the game in co-op, “all gamers can do different missions, most of them at the same time – unless the story requires them to stick together. When we say open world, we really mean it.”
Since this is a zombie themed horror survival, it is only normal to expect some kind leveling up for players on successful completion of missions and on learning new skills. Taking that into consideration, Smektala confirmed that the game will indeed feature character progression and everything that’s usually related to it.
“Yes, there’s a whole RPG character progression system in the game, so you will be able to upgrade your character spending hard earned experience points on skills and perks,” he stated.
“The same goes for our Be The Zombie mode, in which you play as a zombie and get special zombie experience points for killing survivors. You can then spend those zombie XPs for zombie skills to build an ultimate zombie killing machine. How kick ass is that?”
And since it’s that big a deal these days to run a game with the highest possible resolution and frames per second, the team was asked whether the game will run at 1080p/60fps on PS4 and Xbox One. Technology director Jakub Klarowicz answered quite frankly:
“It’s too early to tell. We aim to have the final game running at 1080p, 60 fps on both PS4 and XboxOne, and it seems that we will be able to achieve this. Obviously, we’re still working on the game itself and its optimization, but we aim to provide that kind of experience when the game launches.”
While an exact release date for the title is yet to be revealed, Techland’s Dying Light, a cross-generational title, is set to hit PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC, sometime in 2014.