Former Dying Light lead knew Techland devs were "not afraid to do things differently" as soon as he found out what their jump button was
Former Dying Light lead says the moment he realised the devs at Techland weren't afraid to think outside of the box was when he tried to jump for the first time in the game.
Speaking at a Digital Dragons 2026 panel attended by GamesRadar+ the now-former Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała – who announced he was stepping away from the zombie franchise after 13 years earlier this month – recalled the first time he got his hands on the zombie parkour classic. "I had just joined the studio, I knew we were making a game about parkour, so running, jumping. I held the controller, I started moving, I wanted to jump, so I pressed 'A' – the same way that you were doing in all of the other games back then."
He recalls "there was a gameplay programmer sitting next to me… and he created the parkour system. So, he looked at me smiling… and he said, 'You know what, we don't jump with 'A' here.' And I remember thinking, OK, so these guys, Techland, they are not afraid to do things differently."
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And while it was presented as being different, Smektała explained "it was not different just for the sake of being different. There is a reason why in Dying Light you jump [with] the right bumper – you jump [with the] right bumper because you don't have to take your finger off the right stick, so you can look where you jump." But he explains, "for me, that small thing was a sign of a bigger attitude, that Techland was brave from the beginning, and Dying Light was brave from the beginning."
Not to burst Smektała's bubble, but Mirrors Edge actually did the same thing for its first-person parkour about seven years before the release of Dying Light. Still, it is an unconventional control system, and considering how many devs map a dodge/dash button to one of the face buttons when it absolutely should be on the triggers, it's still worth applauding that Techland made the right choice with its mapping.
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Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.
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