Techland is hiring for "a new online experience in the Dying Light franchise" just three months after launching The Beast
Techland is hiring for "a new online experience in the Dying Light franchise" just three months after launching The Beast
While Techland has a storied, 25-year history making all manner of games, the last decade has been defined by Dying Light. With the release of Dying Light The Beast in September, it's now three successful entries deep into one of the best zombie games series around, but its attempts to diversify took a hit earlier in the year when it canceled two upcoming projects mid-development. However, Techland didn't lay any employees off, instead moving them to other teams and stating it still had "a number of games in [its] pipeline." Now, we may potentially be seeing early signs of one of them, as a job posting on the developer's website mentions "a new online experience in the Dying Light franchise."
Despite scrapping those two games back in July, seemingly due to financial losses suffered over the course of 2024 before Dying Light The Beast arrived, Techland has maintained it's still working on new projects. The identity of those projects, though, is not officially known. While Techland did announce it was making a fantasy RPG back in 2022, it is thought to be one of the two games it axed in the summer. Insider Gaming also reported that one of its upcoming projects is a new entry in the Call of Juarez series. But that's all we've had until now.
Among the dozens of vacancies currently on the Techland website's careers page, PCGamesN has spotted an opening for a Lead Online Game Designer. While all three games in the Dying Light series have online co-op, this position does not appear related to supporting that side of things. Why? The job description says that the successful candidate will "define the framework and structure for a new online experience in the Dying Light franchise." In the following requirement, it describes the project as an "online experience in the Dying Light universe."
The job description also says that the new Lead Online Game Designer will "lead [their] team designs through the full development cycle: from conception and prototyping through implementation, release and continuous support after launch."

Further requirements for the role include working on "engagement mechanisms and in-game economy," as well as progression systems. When it comes to qualifications, Techland is also looking for someone with "senior-level experience in game design for online and live-service (Games-as-a-Service) titles."
Now, I'll caveat this by saying that this could potentially be hinting at a new online spinoff mode within an existing Dying Light game, with The Beast being the most logical candidate. However, given some of the wording around it being a new experience in the "franchise" and "universe," my money's on an entirely new game.
Techland declined to comment when I asked for clarification about this new Dying Light experience.

Even with Dying Light The Beast only dropping three months ago, and those other projects being scrapped around six months ago, it appears Techland still has some pretty encouraging forward momentum. While it will likely try to support Dying Light The Beast as long as it can with post-launch updates - something it did exceptionally well with Dying Light 2 - it's good to know that something new is in the works for all of us zombie parkour fans out there.