Techland is finally focusing on its open world fantasy action game
Techland is best known as the studio behind the zombie parkour series Dying Light, but it's developed a number of other games over the years, including Call of Juarez and Dead Island. And with Dying Light 2 now out of the gate and doing fine, the studio has revealed that it's getting up to something a little different for its next game: a "triple-A open-world action-RPG in a fantasy setting."
"We're very happy with what we have accomplished with the Dying Light franchise so far," Techland CEO Paweł Marchewka said. "Moreover, our journey with Dying Light 2: Stay Human has only just begun as we plan to support this game for at least 5 years, with its scope and size matching, if not exceeding, what we have provided our community with during post-launch support for its predecessor."
"At the same time, our ambition is to introduce a brand new IP that is vastly different from what we have been doing for the past several years. We want to create a fully next-gen experience. A new fantasy epic set in a sprawling open world, fueled by the skills and experience we have gained as a team over the years, infused with new ideas, passion, and creativity."
Techland has brought on a number of developers from studios including CD Projekt, Ubisoft, Arkane, Guerrilla Games, and People Can Fly to work on the project: Narrative director Karolina Stachyra and narrative lead Arkadiusz Borowik both worked on The Witcher 2 and 3, for instance, while lead game designer David McClure was previously a game systems designer on Deathloop.
Marchewka said there were no further details to share, but if all of this sounds oddly familiar, your memory is not playing tricks: Techland actually first revealed the project six years ago, even before the announcement of Dying Light 2. A rep confirmed in an email that this is the same game as the one unveiled in 2016.
Techland had been developing the fantasy RPG for about a year up to that point and said that it has continued to work on the game "throughout Dying Light 2: Stay Human's record-setting launch." That's a long time for an in-development project to go unannounced, but it's fair to say that Techland's focus has been on the Dying Light games and is only now turning its focus to the fantasy project. The studio said that it's preparing to "significantly grow the development team," and shared a link to its jobs page.