Gaming News News Techland Reveals Dying Light: Hellrunners — The Game That Never Saw the Light of Day

Techland Reveals Dying Light: Hellrunners — The Game That Never Saw the Light of Day

November 14, 2025, 09:44 PM

It turns out Techland was working on another game set in the Dying Light universe, titled Hellrunners. Although the project was ultimately canceled, series lead Tymon Smektala recently shared some details about what could have been.

Here’s what we know about Dying Light: Hellrunners:

The project was in development around 2016–2017 by a team at Techland;
The game was envisioned as a runner—either endless or level-based—inspired by titles like Canabalt;
Gameplay would have focused on running, overcoming obstacles, leaping across gaps, and using a grappling hook;
Zombies and parkour elements, signature features of Dying Light, were planned to be included;
Players would collect resources such as UV panels, coins, or Antizin vials;
The team experimented with both endless runner and level-based gameplay modes;
After developing several prototypes, the team felt the genre was too limited for innovation, leading to the project’s cancellation;
There is no connection between Hellrunners and the Nightrunners faction from Dying Light 2—the Nightrunners came later;
After Hellrunners was shelved, the studio shifted its focus to developing Dying Light 2 Stay Human;
The game was considered as a potential mobile or casual release, but with higher-quality graphics.

Earlier this year, Techland released Dying Light: The Beast for PC and consoles, which received a wave of positive feedback from players. In our review, we highlighted the exciting boss fights, fun co-op, stunning open world, abundance of intriguing side quests, and an excellent soundtrack as major pluses. On the downside, we noted a poor main storyline, lack of endgame content, a dull progression system, and somewhat clunky controls.

PC Xbox Series X/S PS5 Dying Light 2 Stay Human News Dying Light: The Beast News Gaming News News Techland gameplay details cancellations and delays

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Hennadiy Chemеris

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Gaming Journalist. I have been writing news for VGTimes since 2015 on a variety of topics including not only games but also movies, anime, cosplay, cutting-edge technology, artificial intelligence, memes, and social media. I am also the author of several reviews, top lists, compilations, and other articles related to video games. I collect various gamer memorabilia, including figurines, posters, old consoles, and more. I have a keen interest in retro gaming. I have been gaming since the early 2000s on both PC and consoles.

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