Dying Light: The Beast Devs Recall Shirtless Crane and Sock Fish
Techland's developers and voice cast revisit the small accidents, major design decisions, and recording sessions that stayed with them.
A year after Dying Light: The Beast reached players, its developers are recalling the accidents, arguments, and late-stage fixes that became part of the game. Co-op testing helped turn shirtless Kyle Crane into an unexpected fan favorite, while a dispute over metal reflections sent two artists to study a real chimney. Techland gathered memories from the people who made the game and voiced its characters in its first-anniversary reflections on Steam.
A separate anniversary recap counted 52 million sessions and 39 million deaths during the game’s first year. These reflections look beyond the totals to the creative decisions and everyday moments behind them.
The accidents that made it into the game
Art Director Katarzyna Tarnacka-Polito called Dying Light: The Beast her favorite project. She had doubted she would find another game with the atmosphere and team spirit she remembered from Dying Light: The Following, but said The Beast brought those things back. One surprise came during co-op tests, when players took off Kyle Crane’s shirt, added aviator sunglasses, and ran around Castor Woods. The team kept the look in the game after seeing how much fun it was, and it became a fan favorite.
Tarnacka-Polito also brought her chicken, Ewa, to the office and cast her in a promotional video. Another memory began with a much less feathered subject: she and Technical Art Director Maciej Jamrozik spent a long time debating how metal should reflect light in shadow. Their CEO eventually sent them to a hardware store to buy the same kind of sheet-metal chimney used in the game, giving the argument a real-world reference.
Senior Producer Martyna Mączka recalled a school of fish that looked more like drifting socks. After Development Director Szymon Strauss pointed out the resemblance, the team could not unsee it. Photogrammetry Specialist Daniel then scanned real dead fish for reference, helping the team replace the accidental sock-fish look with proper fish in Castor Woods. QA Analyst Mateusz Zieliński also arranged permission from creator Pipapeep to hide a small collaboration featuring the creator’s creatures in the game.
Decisions that changed the development
Strauss remembered the meeting where the team decided to bring Kyle Crane back. He said the character’s return changed the energy of the project. The team also read dialogue aloud in table reads to catch lines that sounded written rather than spoken. For Strauss, combat clicked when people stopped treating it like a test and started playing and smiling. A new lighting model made the same assets and levels look like a different game, he recalled.
Lead Producer Michał Broda pointed to a late push on the game’s nights. Two months before launch, playtests showed that the night experience was not delivering the darkness, danger, and intensity players wanted from the first Dying Light. A focused team spent the next two months iterating daily. One stubborn problem was the slow-motion Volatile attack triggered when a player looks behind during a chase. After the Technical Director found a breakthrough, clips of the attack spread around the company.
From the announcement to the recording booth
Senior PR Manager Paulina Dziedziak recalled watching the game’s announcement during Opening Night Live at gamescom 2024 from a small room in Koelnmesse. The reveal that Kyle Crane was back brought an emotional response from both the team and players, and Dziedziak spent the following days with Roger Craig Smith, Crane’s voice actor. A year later, Senior QA Analyst Jacek Śliz worked at the team’s gamescom 2025 booth, where visitors tried a nearly complete version of the game. He remembered fans waiting 3.5 hours for a short chance to play.
Smith’s own recording-room memory was the Bober meme. He learned how to say the words from the Polish source video and performed them with Kyle Crane’s swagger, a moment that made it into the game. Jonathan Rhodes, who voiced the Baron, recalled recording discoverable voice notes as the character developed. For a scene called The Last Supper, he paused the session, grabbed an apple from the studio kitchen, and recorded a real bite, chew, and throw.
Jonah Scott, the voice of Aiden Caldwell, singled out the scene where Aiden and Kyle speak to each other as a career highlight. He said he hoped the game’s open-ended story for the two characters could continue someday. For Acting Community Engagement & Game Research Lead Nicola Karnas, the lasting memory was a close friendship formed during development, built through small gestures like sharing food, grabbing coffee, and checking in after difficult meetings.
Which story sticks with you most, the sock-shaped fish, the real-chimney test, or the apple recorded for the Baron? Follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, Telegram for more gaming coverage.
Dying Light: The Beast
Developed by Techland
Dying Light: The Beast Restored Land is a new enhanced version of the game that includes the base game, all previously released updates and the premiere Restored Land content in one package. This includes Legend Levels, New Game+, Ray Tracing, Nightmare Mode, dozens of new brutal finishers, hundreds of parkour and gameplay improvements, and numerous visual and audio enhancements - delivering new ways to experience the apocalypse.
- Genre Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
- Platforms Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox One
- Perspective First person
- Modes Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative
- Release September 18, 2025
- Publisher Techland
-
Age Rating
