Techland deployed Update 1.5 for Dying Light: The Beast on December 17. The package centers on a new difficulty, Nightmare Experience, and brings systems that change how players manage night-time survival, plus a new Alpha Volatile enemy and two finishers. These changes arrive after the studio’s November update that added New Game+ and ray tracing, which was covered in the site’s Update 1.4 coverage.
What Nightmare Experience does
The new Nightmare Experience raises base enemy strength, improves AI reaction and aggression, and reduces available resources so players must ration supplies more carefully. Some Dark Zones may feature Volatiles during daytime, and completing the highest-difficulty challenges rewards exclusive charms, a special outfit, and a new vehicle skin.
The Alpha Volatile
The update adds an Alpha Volatile, described as the most dangerous and intelligent Volatile encountered so far. It can track the player’s scent, ignore flashlight UV, and pursue a player across the map until a safe zone is reached or it is killed, forcing more careful night-time play.
New survival mechanics and finishers
Update 1.5 introduces a Hunger System that affects stamina, health regeneration, and combat effectiveness, and also makes the flashlight drain and dim as batteries run low. Techland also added two new finishers, one for one-handed blunt weapons and one for one-handed slashing weapons.
Players who want the full official context can read Techland’s update page on the studio site at Techland’s update page.
Call of the Beast community challenge
The ongoing Call of the Beast community initiative continues with weekly goals and rewards. The site notes the cycle is currently on Challenge 9, and the next challenge begins on Thursday, December 18.
Below is a short overview of the patch’s biggest categories followed by the official notes reproduced for clarity.
The update tightens progression and balance for New Game+ and Legend Levels, applies various performance and graphical fixes including ray tracing adjustments, resolves several stability and co-op crash cases, and fixes a range of UI and environmental issues.
Patch Notes
Nightmare Experience
Nightmare Experience is a new difficulty level for Dying Light: The Beast – designed for seasoned players looking for serious survival experience. It makes Human and Infected enemies stronger, smarter, more aggressive, reacting faster to players’ actions using their heightened senses. Some Dark Zones may now include Volatiles during the day and gameplay becomes more challenging as resources are limited and they need to be managed more carefully.
The Alpha Volatile
This update also introduces a new Alpha Volatile. This is the most powerful infected in Castor Woods, and the most intelligent Volatile in the history of Dying Light. It tracks the player’s scent, ignores the UV light from the flashlight, and can hunt and follow them across the map until they reach a safe zone or manage to kill it. He’s smart and dangerous, enforcing a careful and strategic playstyle during the night.
New survival mechanics
On top of that Nightmare Experience brings new survival mechanics. The Hunger System affects stamina, health regeneration, and combat efficiency. The longer players ignore hunger, the stronger the penalties become. Additionally the flashlight drains over time and will dim and flicker as the battery gets low, requiring players to craft or find replacements.
Completing the hardest challenges in this difficulty rewards players with exclusive items, including unique charms, and a special outfit, and a new vehicle skin.
Call of The Beast Community Challenge
The Call of the Beast community initiative is still running. Players dive into weekly challenges, hitting shared goals, earning rewards, and building momentum together to unlock a special Legendary Reward. We are currently in Challenge 9, where players are racing to loot millions of items at night. The next challenge kicks off on Thursday, December 18.
The players’ dedication and creativity are truly amazing. To further reward their engagement, Techland has organized a video editing contest, teaming up with partners like Intel and Alienware to offer high-value prizes for the winners.
NEW FINISHERS
We’ve added 2 new finishers to give you even more varieties of bloody execution on enemies.
- 1 for one-handed blunt weapons
- 1 for one-handed slashing weapons
ADDITIONAL FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
Gameplay:
New Game+ & Legendary Levels:
- Adjusted the NewGame+ and Legendary Levels progression curves to reduce farming exploits and balance the experience better.
- Starting a NewGame+ will now check the Legend Level of players to adjust enemies difficulty accordingly.
- Reaching Legend Level 300 before reaching NewGame+ 10 will make enemies’ difficulty adjust accordingly.
Legend Levels:
- Fixed the possibility for players with no Legend Levels progress to pick up Legend Levels reward weapons left by coop teammates and obtain blueprints of such weapons
- Balanced mods bonus damage related to Legend Levels Rewards
- Balancing of durability of legend weapons Balanced situation where car HP scaled inconsistent with player damage for legend levels
- Fix for the buff “+15% damage (humans) of “Butcher’s Dream” failing to apply correctly
- Fix for critical hit damage does not scaling accordingly with legend levels
- Fixed cases of weapon mods and charms multiply base damage different than the one visible to the player
NewGame+:
- Balancing amount of XP granted on higher NewGame+ levels
- Suiciders, Gas Tank Bitters and Gas Tank Virals fixes of explosion strength for higher NewGame+ levels
- Fixed the case of XP loss on Story Mode NewGame+ upon player’s death
- Fixes related to AI having higher ranks than quest rank in cases where it is not intended
Performance & Stability:
- Fixed multiple COOP crash cases when peer joins the host
- Fixed a crash triggered by changing FPS limiter values
- Fixed instances of FPS drops when switching graphics settings from Ultra to High
Graphical improvements:
- Raytracing:
- Fixed laggy tree shadows when Raytracing enabled
- Applied various lighting fixes in Side Quest interiors on Raytracing mode
- Fixed COOP synchronization issues on PS5
- Fixed graphical artifacts in the Exile cave upon adjusting Upscaler settings
- Implemented various occluder fixes across the environment
- Fixed rectangular blood shapes on the Peacekeeper weapon
- Fixed of reward icons glowing irregularly depending on how players highlight or claim rewards
Environmental & navigational fixes:
- Resolved an environmental issue in the Exile Cave where players get stuck behind a tent
- Corrected several geometry gaps visible when climbing ledges in the old town
- Addressed several geometry gaps visible when climbing ledges in the swamps area
UI & Audio:
- Fixed the big message for Legend Level gained suggests using “U” key for the Skills Menu instead of the correct “L” key
- Resolved missing strings related to Legend Levels
- Applied several Steamdeck UI issues related to misaligned or overlapping text
- Fixed weapon damage display for high Legend Levels (above 10m)
- Fixed the crest of recommended Legend Levels in the NewGame+ config screen not matching the actual Legend Levels crest of players on higher NewGame+ levels
- Re-enabled Photo Mode at the beginning of NewGame+
- Adjusted the NewGame+ category title in Public Games section to prevent overlapping with other titles in certain languages
- Corrected the camouflage skill sound not playing correctly
Unless something breaks from the update, don’t expect Techland to release a new patch for the game until January 2026.
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Dying Light: The Beast
Developed by Techland
Dying Light: The Beast is a thrilling standalone zombie adventure set in a tightly-crafted rural region. Play as Kyle Crane, a legendary hero who breaks free after years of brutal experiments. Now, he must realize there’s more at stake than just revenge.
- Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox One
- Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative
- Release: 2025-09-18
- Publisher: Techland
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Age Rating:
PEGI 18 / CERO Z / GRAC 19+ / ESRB M / CLASS_IND 18 / USK 18 / ACB R 18+
- IGDB Rating: 70.1/100
