Riding the success of its Dying Light franchise, Polish game studio Techland has given fans a sneak peek at what's coming next. And no, it's not more zombies — although we will be getting plenty of Dying Light 2 Stay Human DLC. Techland's next big project is a AAA open world, action-RPG in a fantasy setting, and this week they shared the first concept art for it.
The image features a single hero standing on the cliff of a lush tropical setting, overlooking a great waterfall and ancient ruins. As this game is said to be open world, this is probably just a taste of what to expect.
Not much else was revealed about this unannounced game, but Techland used the opportunity to recruit for its development. The game already has several industry veterans on board, including Karolina Stachyra as narrative director. Stachyra wrote the Bloody Baron questline for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and also contributed to both the overall game itself and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.
She's joined by Arkadiusz Borowik as narrative lead. Borowik previously worked with CD Projekt Red on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, plus its DLCs. Other veterans on the team include Bartosz Ochman (Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3) as open world director, Mario Maltezos (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Mad Max) as creative director, David McClure (Deathloop) as lead game designer), and Kevin Quaid (Horizon Zero Dawn) as lead animator.
While Techland reiterated plans to support Dying Light 2 Stay Human for at least five years, they are excited to introduce a new IP. Here's what Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka had to say about the new IP:
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. While we cannot share more details about this project now, we're all truly invested in it and looking forward to showing it to gamers when the time is right."
While the prospect of a new open world action-RPG from Techland is an exciting one, it's clearly still very early in development. This game is currently in development as a next-gen experience which means it's probably only coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.