“There’s a strong emphasis on environmental storytelling, with secrets, hidden paths, and lore woven into the landscape, each part of the map handcrafted by our artists.,” says Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektala.

Originally starting out as paid DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human, the upcoming Dying Light: The Beast eventually grew large enough in scope that Techland decided to turn it into its own standalone instalment. Clearly, then, it’s going to be a sizeable experience in its own right- at the same time, however, as you’d expect, it’s not going to be as large as Dying Light 2 itself was.

Take its map, for instance. Dying Light: The Beast will take players to a new setting in Castor Woods, but don’t expect it to be as large as Dying Light 2’s Villedor was. The same was confirmed by franchise director Tymon Smektala in a recent interview with GamingBolt, though he does also say that Castor Woods is going to be a “much more detailed” map, with a greater emphasis on more rewarding exploration, environmental storytelling, secrets, and what have you.

“Castor Woods is an intense, atmospheric setting – a rural, forested valley with few diverse biomes, ranging from national park to industrial areas,” he said. “It’s smaller than the map of Dying Light 2 Stay Human, but it’s much more detailed, designed to make exploration rewarding at every turn. There’s a strong emphasis on environmental storytelling, with secrets, hidden paths, and lore woven into the landscape, each part of the map handcrafted by our artists. There are lots of mysteries hidden in this world, some going back in many many years, and we hope players will find themselves immersed in this eerie, desolate world and will have fun discovering it.”

Castor Woods is also going to deviate from what Dying Light has done in the past with its settings by being much less urban and instead putting players in the middle of a dense forest environment. How will that impact traversal and parkour throughout the map? According to Smektala, parkour will still be central, with Techland seemingly taking a more deliberate approach to designing parkour-focused environments within a new kind of biome.

“Parkour is central to the Dying Light franchise, so we knew we had to keep it even if the environment is different,” he said. “The idea was that even if there are less structures, buildings to climb over and run through, we decided to make every one count – so there’s almost no buildings that you can just enter through the main door. To reach anywhere you need to use the agility of the main character. On top of that we’re also adding an opportunity to drive vehicles and this helps to travel between areas which have a bigger density of parkour obstacles and opportunities. But no matter the form of transportation – either it’s by foot or by car – it’s still the dynamic traversal our fans like a lot, just adapted for this unique environment.”

In the same interview, Smektala also spoke to us about the PS5 Pro’s PSSR, and how it can potentially impact development.

Dying Light: The Beast is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but doesn’t yet have a release date.