INTERVIEW – We sat down with Tymon Smektala the Producer of Dying Light to ask him a few questions about their latest – surprisingly successful – zombie horror game and also the past and future of Techland. You might be surprised how old is Techland itself.

 

When Dying Light was first announced, it was kind of a pleasant surprise since everybody expected another Dead Island from you guys. Do you plan another surprise like that?

Well to quote one of the greatest fictional characters ever – “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”. We’re fortunate enough to be an independent studio so you never really know… But stay tuned, we have a sweet slice of unexpectedness coming…

Even though Dying Light was already available a month ago as a digital download, it’s still a big success as in the UK for example on physical release, when it is only in sale right now. Some theory conspirator says “this was deliberate and planned all along to maximize profits”. Of course many people also highly doubt this, but still could you tell us, what exactly happened?

To make the long story short – there were logistical and manufacturing issues which made it impossible to have the game on shelves in its physical form outside of North and South America. That’s a point many miss when talking about this hitch. The game came out as planned on 2 continents so you can see the delay wasn’t deliberate. We pushed to get it out on time and but only managed to so on that side of the world. I love good conspiracy theories, though this one is off – it was a huge blow for us, and gave us many sleepless nights. Thankfully our fans supported us or patiently waited and the game didn’t suffer because of it so thank you to everyone who backed us!

Dying Light being such a success the other question which begs to be answered: do you plan a sequel to the game? By that I mean: Dying Light 2 or something similar to Dead Island: Riptide? DLCs/standalone DLCs?

There are conversations and brainstorms but to be honest it’s not our main focus yet. We still need to work hard on the core game to make it an IP that’s really going to be a relevant one in this generation. We plan to support the game with lots of new content, both paid and free, and you can expect some tasty treats as soon as May.

 

Why did you choose a fictional Turkish city: Harran as the main city of the game? How the idea came? Also do you received some feedback from players from Turkey how did they like the setting?

As far as I know they love it – even though for us Harran is not really a Turkish city. We really wanted a fictional place, because it gave us more freedom to experiment with the game content. When the place was created we were looking at lots of real world locations, trying to find architectural patterns fitting for our Natural Movement system. We realized that Istanbul and other cities from that region have the shapes and sizes that we needed. It was also cool to use that setting since it hasn’t been used heavily in the zombie genre.

Regarding the gameplay you were clearly inspired by some Ubisoft games (Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed) and of course also Mirror’s Edge. Was this a deliberate decision to mix those gameplay elements, or did the ideas came along the development?

Well our original design docs didn’t reference Mirrors’ Edge or Far Cry so it wasn’t really deliberate.  But the titles you mentioned are undiscussed benchmarks in, respectively, the “first person parkour” and “the first person open world” genres so even subconsciously we were drawing from these great interactive experiences. I hope though that in gamer’s eyes Dying Light offers a mix of elements unique enough to give it its own identity.

“Zombies” have a lot of allegories, including depicting stupid people for their choice regarding their political or other decisions and strongly believe everything their leaders/product description says.

Some would believe that’s why zombies in games are so popular: they show a mocking glass to people.

Do you believe so? Is this one of the reasons why you like doing zombie games – to show this subtle mocking mirror to gamers?

I remember the first time it struck me – the allegorical power of the zombie figure. It was during my first viewing of the original “Dawn of the Living Dead”, a true genre classic which formed my own thinking about zombies. I’m not sure if it really is the secret of the zombie formula – many people say that, especially in games, zombies allow you to whack other people with machetes without feeling guilty about it – but I believe that adding this element to your fictional story can help to infuse it with more profound themes. Either in their “living undead” and “crazed victims of infection” version they’re very extreme, and such extremities allow you to explore very deep, untouched parts of human psyche. Just look at a movie like “28 days later”. Even in “28 weeks later”, which was a much weaker, action oriented sequel to the great original, the first scene shows how much you tell with that formula.

What kind of inspirations did you have for Dying Light? The Walking Dead? Day Z?

When you trying to create a mobster story you have to reference The Godfather, right? Of course Walking Dead and Day Z were watched and played at Techland during the production of Dying Light, but we went deeper than that. We have some very heavy zombie buffs in our studio so we looked at almost everything – starting with “White Zombie” and ending with some crazy stuff like “Jesus Hates Zombies” or “Zombie Strippers” (Jenna Jameson is a bomb in this one).

“I’m sure that gamers wouldn’t mind another zombie experience from us.”

What would YOU do in case of a zombie apocalypse? 😀

Probably hole up in my apartment with my family, trying to survive for as long as we can. Being a father makes you look at questions like that with all seriousness…. Not that I think zombie apocalypse will happen. 😛

When I first met you, it was back in the early 2000’s in Cannes (maybe in 2002, when there was a gaming event here), where you have shown Chrome, a totally different game back then. Do you plan to go back to the roots regarding this kind of game or do you want to stick to zombie games or do you plan to do something totally different?

I’ll say yes to all of your questions. There’s a strong movement within our company which says “Let’s make Chrome 2” – and we know that there are people out there who would love to see a sequel to that game. We go even deeper – Techland’s first game was Crime Cities and that’s a title who’s sequel could really benefit from current technology. I’m also sure that gamers wouldn’t mind another zombie experience from us, so that’s another option. And us, being a bunch of creative people, we always want to do something new. As I said before – there are some surprises coming, but the core Dying Light team still focuses on this game.

We both live in post socialist countries, which had a hard time to grow and develop and the governments aren’t especially helpful regarding the development of the gaming sector. (Unlike in the UK, South Korea or especially France). How would you describe this situation in Poland, do you had a hard time to grow your firm, did you get some financial help from the government of any kind? (It’s the contrary in Hungary, that’s one of the reasons why big gaming development firms are dead here.) How would you describe this situation in Poland? You have another very successful firm here: CD Project Red…

It’s OK. I cannot say we get huge help from the government – except for some additional funds to showcase our games abroad, though that’s something the government offers to majority of companies from many industries attending international fair events. We built Techland using our own resources, and it wasn’t always peachy and creamy. Thankfully with Dead Island and Dying Light we have two very successful projects under our belt now, so it’s a great foundation for further growth and development. I hope that one day Techland name will be counted among the top in game devs. That’s our ambition and our goal basically.

– Interview made by BadSector-