Today, the open-world zombie game *Dying Light: Beasts Within* is officially released.
As the pioneer of parkour-based zombie games, developer Techland has not only created the renowned *Dead Island* and *Dead Island: Riptide*, but its subsequent release, *Dying Light 1 and 2*, also pioneered a new genre of zombie games. *Dying Light 1* alone sold 17 million copies by 2019, generating approximately 2.6 billion yuan in revenue (according to VGI data).
In its first month alone, *Dust* sold over 5 million copies, propelling Techland’s net profit from 65.2 million yuan to 1.3443 billion yuan in one fell swoop. According to the latest data from 2023, combined sales of the two games have surpassed 30 million copies.
Also in 2023, Tencent acquired a 67% majority stake in Techland for €1.35 billion (according to a report by Navigator Capital Group, equivalent to approximately 10.5 billion yuan), becoming the company’s largest shareholder.
Now, the latest installment in the franchise, *Dying Light: Beasts Within*, has shot straight to the top of Steam’s best-seller list upon release. With a current player approval rating of 91%, it has once again demonstrated Tencent’s keen investment acumen and is poised to become the next overseas hit in Tencent’s investment portfolio.
01
*Dying Light: Beasts Within* was initially intended to be a major DLC for *Dying Light 2*, but following a major leak in 2023, the original plans underwent a complete overhaul. After a week-long meeting among the developers at Techland, a new idea emerged, and the team decided to reposition it as a standalone project within the franchise.
Thus, the core theme of this new installment revolves around the original protagonist, Superman Kran, who—after being captured following the "Believers" DLC and enduring a decade of inhuman torment—is endowed with beast-like powers as he struggles to survive in this chaotic world overrun by zombies.
To be honest, when I first heard about this, I was completely baffled. As a longtime player who’s been with the series since the first and second games, I find it hard to imagine that Cran, who could tear zombies apart with his bare hands, take on elite enemies in close combat, and was revered as the “Superman of Harlan,” would face any difficulty surviving in today’s world.
It’s kind of like when we dropped Deye in Shenzhen to fend for himself—you might find it hard to imagine, but the challenge wasn’t to starve him to death, but to feed him until he burst.
But once I got into the game, everything just fell into place.
The game begins ten years after Kran escaped from the lab following an accident. The story is set in Beaver Valley, a remote region that blends urban life with untamed wilderness. Here, Kran—half-human, half-superhuman—begins his battle against the Baron.
It sounds pretty epic, but as for the actual gameplay, I’d have to say it’s a mixed bag.
First of all, the game’s map design resembles certain urban areas from the first game combined with a “Believers” DLC. Aside from the downtown, industrial, and residential districts, most of the area is surrounded by mountains and jungles. This means that while you can climb up and down buildings in those three districts, you’ll have to cover most of the rest of the terrain on foot.
The overall architectural style of the complex is more reminiscent of a small European resort town, with relatively low-rise buildings and a clear sense of vertical layering. Many of the buildings feature areas designed for exploration. For players accustomed to the bustling metropolises of the first two games, this offers a significant improvement in terms of aesthetics and novelty, bringing the overall experience back to the style of the original game.
The bad news: There’s no teleportation. The good news: You can drive whenever you want.
However, considering that you have to go out of your way to find vehicles due to the respawn mechanism, plus fuel limits and the utterly useless AI navigation, it’s sometimes actually more convenient to just drive yourself.
In addition, the game retains the classic exploration-and-map-unlocking gameplay from previous installments. Despite a decade of hardship, Superman Crane still can’t escape his fate as a mere tool, shuffling from one problem to the next. In addition to the traditional safe zone unlocking, tasks such as connecting cables and restoring water supply remain central to the game.
It’s worth noting that the Dark Zone has been streamlined: players can either charge in and go on a killing spree, or sneak in, search for key items, and slip away quietly. Different Dark Zones have been designed for various areas—ranging from small residential neighborhoods to large chain supermarkets—with varying terrain and enemy configurations, which serves as a subtle test of players’ decision-making skills.
Finally, regarding combat: although Kran can activate his special ability, he can’t do so at will in the early game. After attacking an enemy, players can fill the mutation gauge; once it’s full, they automatically enter CF Zombie Mode, transforming into the war god Harlan, who tears zombies apart with his bare hands.
By defeating the elite enemy Chimera in the game, you can earn skill points to upgrade your abilities, including activating special powers, enhancing your attack methods, and even transforming at will. However, one issue worth mentioning is that early on, the Chimera is restricted by the storyline and cannot be upgraded freely, so it often happens that while you’re fighting regular enemies, it suddenly transforms into a “helpless rage.”
Skill progression from the first two games has also been significantly streamlined; for example, wall-jumping and sliding tackles are now available from the start, which is a welcome change. Equipment progression leans toward the design of the second game: gear with different attributes provides different affix bonuses, while weapons gain additional customization slots and repair counts based on their quality level.
It’s worth noting that players can obtain firearms such as pistols and machine guns early in the game, and by unlocking skills, they can craft more sophisticated heavy weapons like flamethrowers. Compared to the previous installment, this allows players to experience the thrill of mowing down hordes of enemies much sooner.
Overall, *Dying Light: Beasts Within* definitely captures the essence of the *Dying Light* series. The parkour and zombie combat are still executed very well—for example, the fluidity of the parkour movements, the hit reactions of the zombies, and the various limb-severing mechanics—but that’s about as far as it goes.
Perhaps I had higher expectations for this game as a new release, but overall it feels a bit too conservative, resulting in a noticeable lack of motivation to explore the entire world. Whether it’s the thrill of discovery or the sense of progression as you grow stronger, *Dying Light: Beasts Within* has made some changes, but they clearly aren’t enough.
As a result, while the main questline—involving repairing the power station and restoring the water supply—doesn’t seem to differ much from the first two games, the overall experience still captures the essence of the *Shining* series.
Perhaps, as the development team has stated, *Dying Light: Beasts Within* is positioned as a short, standalone title within the franchise, rather than an attempt to introduce players to an entirely new series. Consequently, when you look back at the history of developer Techland, you realize that even the *Dying Light* franchise itself is a one-in-a-million miracle that emerged only after overcoming countless obstacles; in that light, this conservative approach now seems like a wise choice.
02
Like most Polish game developers—such as CD Projekt Red and People Can Fly—Techland was founded by a group of teenagers driven by a deep passion for games.
Before founding the company, Techland’s president, Paweł Marchewka, was just a local high school sophomore.At the time, the pirated game sales industry was booming in Poland. In addition to his own passion for gaming, Marchewka would often visit the computer market in Wrocław to obtain the latest pirated game software, which he would then take back to his hometown in Ostrów County, Greater Poland, to distribute and sell.
Later, he began looking for stores in other cities that were willing to sell his pirated goods, and even recruited classmates to join him in the business. By the time he was in fifth grade, he had already hired several people and was selling his products in dozens of stores across Poland. The only reason he kept going to school was to get his diploma.
At the time, Poland had not yet enacted copyright laws, so these pirated games did not raise any eyebrows. However, this favorable situation did not last long; shortly thereafter, Poland implemented strict legal regulations regarding intellectual property protection and related issues, forcing Maczewka to adapt to the new rules. He turned his attention to distributing software in the open market.Everything went so smoothly that in 1991, he officially founded what is now Techland, with the aim of engaging in the legitimate distribution of Western games and attempting to develop his own game products.
In late 1993 and early 1994, Techland began experimenting with creating its own products. At first, these were not particularly appealing—mostly simple educational and puzzle games. But Techland’s ambitions were clearly much greater than anyone had imagined; from the very beginning, Maciuk had dreamed of developing world-class games.
So, after officially entering the game development industry, he began recruiting programmers at the student cafeteria of the Wroclaw University of Technology, where there was a computer market; Techland posted advertisements there to find programmers.However, since the company’s first headquarters was set up in a friend’s student apartment in Maczewka, the studio was quite rudimentary. It was there that the game *Prawo krwi* was born; while it may seem a bit too rudimentary by today’s standards, it marked Techland’s official entry into the field of in-house game development.
It wasn’t until 2000 that Techland finally released its first major project, *Crime Cities*, followed shortly thereafter by *Eksterminacja*, a *StarCraft*-style strategy game.Although the latter appeared to be of high quality, its six-year development cycle consumed a significant amount of funds and time. As Maciuk later revealed in an interview, game sales were unlikely to become their primary source of income at that time; translation software, language programs, and other educational software provided the company with the necessary funds to develop large-scale games for a long period.
The turning point came with the company’s in-house game engine. In 2003, a game developed using their proprietary engine, Chrome, quickly sold 800,000 copies, allowing them to recoup their costs and turn a substantial profit. The engine was subsequently refined and licensed to other Polish developers. Later, the renowned titles *Dead Island* and *Dying Light* were both developed using this engine.
Having laid the groundwork for its market operations, Techland decided to venture into the realm of larger-scale game development, targeting a more mature gaming audience. In 2006, *Call of Juarez* burst onto the scene; with total sales of 1 million copies, it marked the beginning of Techland’s competition with major international studios, and its subsequent sequel went on to sell 1.5 million copies worldwide.
The early stages of game development laid a solid foundation for Techland’s subsequent in-house titles, while Maciejewicz’s keen sense of the gaming market enabled Techland to carve out a unique niche within the popular zombie genre, ultimately establishing the company as Poland’s second-largest game developer after CD Projekt Red.
03
In 2011, the release of *Dead Island* offered gamers worldwide an unprecedented zombie-shooting experience. The game’s promotional video alone went viral on YouTube, racking up 12 million views, and with total sales exceeding 8 million copies, the Polish game developer became a household name among gamers worldwide.The game was published in collaboration between Techland and Deep Silver, and the concept was conceived by Maciuk during a vacation while he was relaxing on a paradise-like beach.
It is worth noting that at the time, Poland lacked a sufficient number of game development specialists, including professional designers, animators, and artists. As a result, Techland decided to establish a subsidiary in Canada called Digital Scapes Studios to develop a downloadable content expansion—Hunter Mode, in which players take on the role of a hunter—for the major game title *Dying Light*. However, in July 2021, Digital Scapes Studios was sold to CDRP and subsequently renamed CD Projekt Red Vancouver.
If the release of *Dead Island* truly opened the door for Techland to become a world-class game developer, then the arrival of *Dying Light* truly cemented Techland’s foothold in this highly competitive top-tier market.In 2015, with its unique parkour-based zombie-fighting gameplay, *Dying Light* took the world by storm upon its release. Unlike *Resident Evil*, which focuses on boxed-in level design, or *Dead Rising*, with its hack-and-slash style,*Dying Light* pioneered an entirely unique genre with its open-world parkour-zombie-fighting gameplay. Whether in terms of zombie movements and appearance, hit feedback, or the open-world survival exploration and parkour experience, *Dying Light* pushed the boundaries to the absolute limit at the time—so much so that even a decade later, most hardcore gamers still fondly remember this game.
In fact, the quality of *Dying Light* truly justifies its astonishing sales figures. Within 45 days of its release, the game had sold 3.2 million copies; by 2018, sales had reached 13 million units; and one year later, it sold another 4 million copies, bringing the total to 17 million.Subsequent game updates and DLCs significantly extended the product’s lifecycle, to the point that by 2020, the majority of Techland’s revenue—aside from some older titles—came from *Dying Light* and its expansion, *Hell’s Assault*. Although player reception was poor at the time, sales revenue far exceeded Techland’s expectations.
In 2022, *Dying Light 2: Stay Human* was officially released. Although Techland billed it as their most ambitious project to date,the game’s scale and level of innovation far exceeded anything that had come before—with the development budget alone likely exceeding $100 million—players were not particularly impressed. The overly awkward plot and the female protagonist’s design, which was perceived as overly focused on LGBT+ themes, sparked widespread outrage. The game’s initial player reviews on Steam were less than favorable, though its reputation improved slightly after the release of the Reimagined Edition through ongoing updates.
Nevertheless, *Shining Force II* still sold over 5 million copies within a month of its release. According to previously released official figures, the series as a whole has surpassed 30 million copies, with *Shining Force II* ultimately selling close to 10 million copies.
Following the “huge success” of *Dying Light 2* in terms of revenue, Tencent’s investment in Techland became a minor footnote ahead of the new game’s release. Thanks to the blockbuster sales of *Dying Light 2*, Techland’s net profit surged significantly from approximately 65.2 million yuan in 2021 to 1.3443 billion yuan, which undoubtedly bolstered Tencent’s confidence in the investment’s value.
So, on July 24, 2023, Techland’s CEO officially announced that Tencent had acquired a majority stake in the company—approximately 67%—making Tencent its largest shareholder.
According to a report by Navigator Capital Group, the deal values Techland at €2.01 billion (approximately RMB 15.6 billion). Tencent paid approximately €1.35 billion (approximately RMB 10.5 billion) for a 67% stake, making this the largest single investment acquisition in Poland in 2023.
However, in keeping with Tencent’s long-standing investment philosophy, Techland retains full ownership and creative control over all its IPs. The company’s management structure remains unchanged, and Tencent will not interfere in its day-to-day operations or R&D decisions.At the time, in addition to *Dying Light: Beasts Within*, Techland was also simultaneously developing a fantasy-themed AAA open-world action RPG. This investment undoubtedly bolstered confidence in the game’s development and accelerated the company’s vision for global game development.
It’s hard to say whether *Dying Light: Beasts Within* was influenced by the above, but the game was initially conceived as a major DLC for *Dying Light 2*. However, following a major leak in 2023, the game’s overall design underwent a significant overhaul, ultimately becoming a standalone title.
Conclusion
In my view, as a standalone game adapted from DLC, *Dying Light: Beasts Within* continues to uphold the high production standards of the *Dying Light* franchise and maintains its undisputed leadership in the parkour-zombie genre. While opinions on the gameplay experience may vary, the game’s core—its one-of-a-kind uniqueness—remains so distinctive that other developers will find it difficult to shake its solid standing in players’ hearts.
From the perspective of global blockbusters, Tencent’s vision remains sharp and incisive.The investment strategy characterized by “capital empowerment and operational independence” continues to play a significant role. Whether it’s the previously massive hit *Dune* or the recently launched *Path of Exile 2*, Tencent’s approach of simply investing without interfering has proven far superior to many investors who love to micromanage. Even among the player community, there’s a common joke: “You might hesitate a thousand times before buying a game Tencent publishes, but for games they’ve invested in, you can just buy them without thinking twice. You have to admit, Tencent’s eye for talent is pretty sharp.”
From this perspective, this win-win investment model is set to become a defining feature of the overseas gaming market. As more and more overseas hit games emerge under Tencent’s investment banner, they are bound to complement Tencent’s in-house titles. In the not-too-distant future, we may well see the emergence of major “Tencent-backed” titles.
原创文章，作者：游茶妹儿，禁止转载：https://youxichaguan.com/en/archives/194566
