Dying Light: The Beast is due out in a little less than a month from the time of this writing, as it'll arrive on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on September 19, 2025. As part of the road to launch, developer Techland has debuted a new trailer, and more interestingly, shown off some behind-the-scenes concept art, and gone into detail about the team's design intentions with multiple elements of the game in a new developer blog.
Techland delves into Kyle Crane's return, and the artistic direction behind what he looks like now after a decade of imprisonment, and how to tell the story of his time in captivity without the player being able to constantly look at his face in what Techland refers to as an FPP game (first-person parkour). Kyle's arms, then, were given great focus.
"In an FPP game, it’s difficult to convey the appearance of a character, since one of the few elements visible are the hero’s hands. That’s why we put a lot of effort into the details here. A special shoutout to Charidimos Bitsakakis, who, accompanied by other artists, spent countless hours perfecting them. We recreated Kyle’s hands from the first game, but added scars and other marks reflecting the torture he endured in the Baron’s lab. The experiments also gave rise to the Beast Mode, which we wanted to be visible in FPP as well - we looked for a visual language to represent his transformation and decided on black veins, dark and menacing, perfectly reflecting Kyle’s nature and what he sees when he becomes the Beast."
The blog also digs into the ways Techland looked to evolve gameplay in Dying Light: The Beast through tweaking and adjusting Kyle's animations, that they should both "be inspired by DL1 Kyle - reflecting his muscle memory, personality, and fighting style," and have "a clear contrast between Kyle in the beast mode - brutal, uncontrolled, overconfident - and Kyle outside of it - pragmatic, precise, and confident."
It's alltogether great dive into Kyle Crane and Dying Light: The Beast for fans who are eagerly anticipating the game's release next month.
When Wccftech checked out Dying Light: The Beast in a preview earlier this year, Kai Tatsumoto found that Crane had indeed been turned into a beast, saying it was the one "certain" thing about the game, even after only checking out an early portion.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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