Sometimes it takes years for developers to admit what fans knew all along. Techland franchise director Tymon Smektała sat down for an interview with Behind The Voice podcast and finally said what Dying Light fans have been screaming since 2022. They underestimated the players and made decisions the community didn’t really need. The biggest mistake? Replacing Kyle Crane, the beloved protagonist from the original Dying Light, with new character Aiden Caldwell in Dying Light 2 Stay Human.
The admission comes as Techland prepares to launch Dying Light The Beast in summer 2025, bringing Kyle Crane back after more than a decade in-universe and three years of real-world fan complaints. Smektała’s willingness to acknowledge the studio got it wrong represents refreshing honesty in an industry where developers rarely admit missteps. But it also raises questions about why it took this long to listen to what the community was saying from the moment Dying Light 2 was announced without Crane.
The Kyle Crane Problem
When Techland revealed Dying Light 2 would feature a new protagonist named Aiden Caldwell instead of continuing Kyle Crane’s story, the community reaction was mixed at best. Many fans understood the desire to tell fresh stories in the same universe, but just as many felt Crane’s arc from the first game and The Following expansion ended on an ambiguous cliffhanger that desperately needed resolution.
The Following’s ending left Crane either becoming a sentient Volatile or nuking Harran to stop the infection’s spread. Neither outcome felt conclusive enough to justify abandoning the character entirely. Fans wanted to know what happened. Did he survive? If he became a Volatile, could he retain his humanity? If he nuked the city, did he escape? These weren’t minor questions players could forget about. They were fundamental narrative threads left dangling.
Techland’s decision to introduce Aiden instead suggested the studio believed players would accept a new face as long as the gameplay remained solid. They underestimated how attached the community had become to Crane, voiced with gravelly charm by Roger Craig Smith. The parkour survivor who started as a reluctant operative and evolved into a genuine hero fighting to protect Harran had earned player investment through dozens of hours of zombie-slaying adventures.
What Smektała Said
In the Behind The Voice interview, Smektała opened up about how they underestimated the fans and the community. The studio made decisions that the players didn’t really need, specifically referring to the choice to move on from Kyle Crane. He discussed bringing Aiden in Dying Light 2 instead of Kyle Crane, acknowledging this represented a fundamental misreading of what the community wanted.
The admission matters because it shows Techland learned from the feedback, even if it took years. Dying Light 2 sold well and received generally positive reviews, so it would have been easy to dismiss fan complaints as loud minority opinions that didn’t reflect the broader audience. Instead, Smektała acknowledged the studio got it wrong and course-corrected with The Beast bringing Crane back.
The Beast Brings Crane Back
Dying Light The Beast represents Techland’s answer to years of fan demands. Kyle Crane returns as the protagonist after being held captive and experimented on by a mysterious figure called The Baron for more than a decade. The experiments granted him beastly abilities that transform him into something more than human but not quite monstrous. It’s a premise that allows Techland to evolve the character while maintaining what made him compelling in the first place.
Roger Craig Smith returns to voice Crane, bringing back the multilayered performance Smektała praised in interviews. There’s pain and exhaustion in how Smith portrays the older, traumatized Crane, but also flashes of the sarcastic personality that defined the character in the original game. The decade-plus of captivity and experimentation changed him, but didn’t erase who he was.
The Beast shifts the setting from dense cityscapes to Castor Woods, a tourist town turned nightmare surrounded by wilderness. After creating city-centric sandboxes in two games in a row, Techland wanted to explore an environment where nature, not concrete, sets the rules. The decision challenges the studio creatively while providing fresh scenery for players who spent hundreds of hours navigating urban environments in previous entries.
Beast Mode and New Abilities
Crane’s new beastly abilities fundamentally change how he approaches combat. Beast Mode transforms him into an orange-glowing powerhouse who leaps around battlefields, throws massive objects, fights hulking enemies with bare fists, and tears enemy heads off in brutal finishing moves. The transformation state evokes God of War’s Kratos rather than the grounded parkour survivor from the original game.
This power fantasy element represents a significant tonal shift from Crane’s original characterization as someone who succeeded through skill and determination rather than superhuman abilities. Whether fans embrace or reject this evolution remains to be seen when The Beast launches. Some players want the scrappy underdog version of Crane from the first game. Others might appreciate the power progression that makes him genuinely formidable after years of suffering.
His parkour skills have also improved dramatically. Demo footage shows Crane leaping huge gaps, running up curved interior walls of water towers, and navigating environments with supernatural agility. These enhancements make sense narratively given The Baron’s experiments, but they also serve gameplay needs by enabling traversal mechanics impossible with realistic human limitations.
What Went Wrong With Dying Light 2
Beyond the protagonist change, Dying Light 2 faced numerous challenges that contributed to community disappointment. The game spent years in troubled development marked by creative director departures, scope changes, and delays. When it finally launched in February 2022, the final product felt compromised despite technical improvements and expanded parkour mechanics.
The choice-driven narrative promising that players would only see 50 percent of content in a single playthrough generated massive pre-release hype. In practice, many decisions felt superficial with cosmetic rather than meaningful consequences. The map alteration mechanics where factions controlled different zones based on player choices sounded revolutionary but executed conservatively, changing window dressing more than fundamental gameplay.
Aiden himself struggled to match Crane’s likability. The character’s motivation searching for his sister created personal stakes, but the execution made him feel generic compared to Crane’s specific personality. Voice actor Jonah Scott delivered a capable performance, but the script didn’t give him material that matched the depth Smith brought to Crane across the original game and expansions.
Community Frustrations
Post-launch support for Dying Light 2 also disappointed parts of the community. Events offered underwhelming rewards that didn’t justify grinding participation. Bundles sometimes released before events concluded, removing incentive to actually play. Techland made controversial decisions like adding roaming Volatiles everywhere without adjusting other mechanics to compensate, creating difficulty spikes that frustrated new players.
The studio eventually addressed many issues through patches and updates, but the pattern of implementing changes the community didn’t ask for while ignoring requested features became frustrating. Players wanted more substantive content and meaningful improvements to core systems. Instead they often received cosmetic bundles and events that felt half-hearted compared to the original game’s post-launch support.
None of these issues made Dying Light 2 a bad game. Millions of players enjoyed the parkour, combat, and co-op experiences. But for longtime fans who loved the original, the sequel felt like Techland chasing broader appeal at the expense of what made the first game special. The protagonist change symbolized that shift more than any other single decision.
Returning to Horror Roots
The Beast represents more than just bringing Crane back. Smektała has discussed in multiple interviews how the game returns to the horror atmosphere that defined the original Dying Light. The first game terrified players with nighttime Volatile encounters that forced desperate sprints to safe zones. Dying Light 2 diluted that fear factor with more predictable enemy patterns and reduced threat levels.
Techland wants The Beast to be scary enough that players might actually hesitate before booting it up. Smektała acknowledges that sounds extreme, but the studio aims to recapture the tension where night falls and suddenly you hear ugly monsters all around you in the forest darkness. The quieter, more isolated Castor Woods setting enhances horror potential compared to densely populated cities where you’re never far from safe zones.
New enemy types including freaks like the Behemoth add fresh threats. These Hulk-like beasts throw cars, charge at high speed, and deliver devastating area-of-effect attacks that force different tactical approaches than standard infected. Human enemies have also been enhanced with smarter AI that uses suppressive fire, flanking maneuvers, and firearms competently, creating threats that rival infected in danger.
Standalone Experience
The Beast launches as a standalone experience rather than requiring Dying Light 2 ownership. Originally conceived as DLC for the sequel, development shifted to a separate project that preserves elements like animations and map pieces while building something entirely new. This decision makes sense creatively and commercially, allowing Techland to reach players who skipped Dying Light 2 or want Kyle Crane’s return without purchasing the game they felt lacked his presence.
Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but the standalone model suggests something between full AAA retail and budget DLC pricing. Techland describes The Beast as substantial enough to justify its own release while focused enough to deliver a complete arc without artificial padding. The summer 2025 window puts it three years after Dying Light 2’s launch, enough time for the community to be hungry for new Dying Light content.
Lessons for the Industry
Smektała’s admission that Techland underestimated players offers lessons for the broader industry. Developers often assume they know what audiences want better than the audiences themselves, leading to creative decisions that miss the mark. Sometimes those risks pay off by introducing players to experiences they didn’t know they wanted. Other times they alienate existing fans without successfully attracting new ones.
The challenge lies in balancing creative freedom with community feedback. If developers only give players exactly what they ask for, innovation suffers and franchises stagnate. But ignoring fundamental requests like continuing a beloved protagonist’s story represents stubborn attachment to creative vision at the expense of customer satisfaction. Finding that balance requires honest self-assessment about whether decisions serve the project or just the developers’ egos.
Techland’s willingness to course-correct with The Beast demonstrates adaptability even if the acknowledgment took years. Many studios double down on unpopular decisions rather than admitting mistakes, alienating communities permanently. By bringing Crane back and directly addressing why they initially moved on from him, Techland rebuilt goodwill that could have been irreparably damaged.
FAQs
What did the Dying Light franchise director admit?
Tymon Smektała admitted Techland underestimated players and made decisions the community didn’t need, specifically replacing Kyle Crane with Aiden Caldwell as protagonist in Dying Light 2 instead of continuing Crane’s story from the first game.
Is Kyle Crane returning in Dying Light The Beast?
Yes, Kyle Crane returns as the protagonist in Dying Light The Beast after being held captive and experimented on for over a decade. He now has beastly abilities including a transformation mode. Roger Craig Smith returns to voice the character.
When does Dying Light The Beast release?
Dying Light The Beast is scheduled to launch in summer 2025 as a standalone experience that doesn’t require owning Dying Light 2. Specific release dates haven’t been announced yet.
Why did Techland replace Kyle Crane in Dying Light 2?
Techland wanted to tell fresh stories in the Dying Light universe with a new protagonist, believing players would accept the change as long as gameplay remained solid. Smektała now admits they underestimated how attached the community was to Kyle Crane.
Will Dying Light 2 still get updates after The Beast?
Yes, Tymon Smektała confirmed on Twitter that Dying Light 2 will continue receiving support even after The Beast launches. The games are separate projects with different focuses.
What is Beast Mode in Dying Light The Beast?
Beast Mode is a transformation state where Kyle Crane’s vision glows orange and his combat abilities dramatically increase. He can leap around battlefields, throw massive objects, fight huge enemies with bare fists, and execute brutal finishing moves.
Where does Dying Light The Beast take place?
The Beast takes place in Castor Woods, a tourist town turned nightmare surrounded by wilderness. This represents a shift from the dense cityscapes of previous Dying Light games to an environment where nature sets the rules.
Conclusion
Tymon Smektała’s admission that Techland underestimated players and made unnecessary decisions represents the kind of honest self-reflection the gaming industry desperately needs more of. The choice to replace Kyle Crane in Dying Light 2 might have seemed creatively bold, but it ignored how deeply the community connected with that character and his unresolved story. Now, years later, Techland is correcting course with The Beast bringing Crane back in a standalone adventure that returns to the horror roots fans loved. Whether the transformation-focused gameplay and wilderness setting successfully recapture what made the original special remains to be seen when the game launches summer 2025. But the willingness to admit mistakes and pivot based on community feedback deserves recognition. Too many studios stubbornly defend unpopular creative decisions rather than acknowledging when they misread their audience. Techland underestimated the players once. At least they’re not making that mistake twice. Kyle Crane is back, and this time Techland knows exactly why fans wanted him.