Studio doesn’t think of Dying Light as a zombie game
Ever since Techland’s Dying Light was announced, it’s drawn comparisons to Dead Island — the studio’s previous title. It’s easy to see how many would come to that quick conclusion with it being an open-world zombie game and all. But, that’s not the way Techland looks at it, as the developer wanted to depart from Dead Island in the first place.
Speaking with Dying Light producer Tymon Smektala at E3, he commented that the team doesn’t view Dying Light as a zombie game, but rather as a game about movement. It knew that it didn’t want to make Dead Island 2 because that would have to be a vastly different game.
Smektala remarked that he’s not surprised that Dead Island 2‘s in production. After all, it’s one of Deep Silver’s bigger properties. However, given the direction Techland wanted to go in with (what eventually came to be) Dying Light, the studio knew that it wasn’t the right fit to develop the next Dead Island game.