How Dying Light allows full freedom of movement

After previously discussing Dying Light's parkour movement and zombie threat, Techland went to EGX Rezzed to discuss how the game's open world will allow full freedom of movement.

Ozzie Mejia

March 29, 2014 4:00 PM

Techland has previously showed off Dying Light's parkour moves, lighting engine, and overall narrative. So when the developer took the stage at EGX Rezzed, the objective was to talk about the game's open world and how it would aim for a truly open experience by removing all invisible barriers. "When we started working on Dying Light, we sat down and we started discussing what we would like to see in a next-gen open-world game," said designer Maciej Binkowski. "And one of the most recurring topics was freedom of movement. A lot of people would say, 'You know what? I want to get over that freaking fence! I want to be able to jump over a wall, I want to get on this building, see what's on top, I want to play the game my way.' And so we set ourselves a number of goals. Everything that looks like you can climb it, you can. No invisble walls. In Dying Light, the whole world is your playground." Binkowski went on to show a small piece of the world map, which looks fairly expansive in itself. On top of that, he added that Dying Light's world would be open vertically, showing multiple-story buildings among other high-rise structures. A short demo showed how this idea will be applied, showing a character attempting to get across a path only to bump into a zombie, requiring him to double-back and jump through a nearby window and escape to a rooftop.

A small indication of the size of Dying Light's world

Binkowski went on to detail how Dying Light's open world would pave the way for emergent gameplay and on-the-fly decision-making, revealing some of the game's unscripted events. In one instance, a horde of zombies was advancing towards the player until a rustling in the distance got the horde's attention. The player then whacked the gas tank on the back of a hazmat zombie, leading to an explosion that took out the entire pack. "Since we're not restricting you to paths, we don't force you, you just get yourself into situations that aren't scripted," Binkowski explained. "They just happen." Dying Light is expected to release later this year on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. For more, check out Techland's full EGX Rezzed presentation here.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

Filed Under

From The Chatty

Refresh Go To Thread

Shacknews

 reply
March 29, 2014 4:00 PM

Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, How Dying Light allows full freedom of movement.

After previously discussing Dying Light's parkour movement and zombie threat, Techland went to EGX Rezzed to discuss how the game's open world will allow full freedom of movement.
- ughhhhhhh
  
   reply
  March 29, 2014 4:34 PM
  
  Sounds great, hope they live up to that promise now...
- PenicillinX57
  
   reply
  March 30, 2014 12:29 PM
  
  Techland is an interesting developer in that their quality control is kind of all over the place. On the one hand, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger was an absolutely incredible game. Yet in the same year they released Dead Island: Riptide which was critically panned. Here's hoping that Dying Light is coming from their "A" team.
- CynicalWanderer
  
   reply
  March 31, 2014 12:29 AM
  
  So presumably you'll be able to climb over anything and everything, but 99% of the rooms and apartments you're climbing over will still have unpartable drapes and unbreakable doors?