Dying Light: The Beast Update Introduces Nightmare Experience

If you've been looking for more of a challenge from Dying Light: The Beast, then you're about to get it. Developer Techland has dropped Update 1.5 for Dying Light: The Beast, and it's giving players the chance to test their skills in the Nightmare Experience.

To turn up the heat on players, human and infected enemies are now smarter, more aggressive, significantly stronger, and more reactive to the players' actions. Volatiles may now even appear during the day in some of the Dark Zones, and players have far fewer resources to deal with them all.

If that wasn't enough, there's a new super enemy, the Alpha Volatile. Techland calls it "the most intelligent Volatile in the history of Dying Light." It's even smarter than the traditional Volatiles and its heightened senses can track the player across the entire map unless they reach a safe zone. The Alpha Volatiles can be killed, but good luck trying to pull that off. At night, the player is the prey for this creature. Players can also get new finishing maneuvers, including one-handed blunt weapons and one-handed slashing weapons.

The dev team must not have thought the new Volatiles were enough to make Nightmare Experience a true challenge. Now players have to deal with hunger, which is tracked through The Hunger System. If players don't keep their character fed, they will succumb to debilitating effects that will weaken their stamina, health regeneration, and combat efficiency. The developers even added more challenge to the game by using the flashlight--its battery can become too low to use if players don't periodically recharge or replace it.

The rest of the additions to the game are included below.

Dying Light: The Beast Update 1.5 Notes​

Gameplay​

New Game+ & Legendary Levels​

  • Adjusted the NewGame+ and Legendary Levels progression curves to reduce farming exploits and balance the experience better.
  • Starting a NewGame+ will now check the Legend Level of players to adjust enemies difficulty accordingly.
  • Reaching Legend Level 300 before reaching NewGame+ 10 will make enemies' difficulty adjust accordingly.

Legend Levels​

  • Fixed the possibility for players with no Legend Levels progress to pick up Legend Levels reward weapons left by coop teammates and obtain blueprints of such weapons
  • Balanced mods bonus damage related to Legend Levels Rewards
  • Balancing of durability of legend weapons Balanced situation where car HP scaled inconsistent with player damage for legend levels
  • Fix for the buff “+15% damage (humans) of “Butcher’s Dream” failing to apply correctly
  • Fix for critical hit damage does not scaling accordingly with legend levels
  • Fixed cases of weapon mods and charms multiply base damage different than the one visible to the player

NewGame+​

  • Balancing amount of XP granted on higher NewGame+ levels
  • Suiciders, Gas Tank Bitters and Gas Tank Virals fixes of explosion strength for higher NewGame+ levels
  • Fixed the case of XP loss on Story Mode NewGame+ upon player’s death
  • Fixes related to AI having higher ranks than quest rank in cases where it is not intended

Performance & Stability​

  • Fixed multiple COOP crash cases when peer joins the host
  • Fixed a crash triggered by changing FPS limiter values
  • Fixed instances of FPS drops when switching graphics settings from Ultra to High

Graphical improvements​

Raytracing​

  • Fixed laggy tree shadows when Raytracing enabled
  • Applied various lighting fixes in Side Quest interiors on Raytracing mode
  • Fixed COOP synchronization issues on PS5
  • Fixed graphical artifacts in the Exile cave upon adjusting Upscaler settings
  • Implemented various occluder fixes across the environment
  • Fixed rectangular blood shapes on the Peacekeeper weapon
  • Fixed of reward icons glowing irregularly depending on how players highlight or claim rewards

Environmental & navigational fixes​

  • Resolved an environmental issue in the Exile Cave where players get stuck behind a tent
  • Corrected several geometry gaps visible when climbing ledges in the old town
  • Addressed several geometry gaps visible when climbing ledges in the swamps area

UI & Audio​

  • Fixed the big message for Legend Level gained suggests using "U" key for the Skills Menu instead of the correct "L" key
  • Resolved missing strings related to Legend Levels
  • Applied several Steamdeck UI issues related to misaligned or overlapping text
  • Fixed weapon damage display for high Legend Levels (above 10m)
  • Fixed the crest of recommended Legend Levels in the NewGame+ config screen not matching the actual Legend Levels crest of players on higher NewGame+ levels
  • Re-enabled Photo Mode at the beginning of NewGame+
  • Adjusted the NewGame+ category title in Public Games section to prevent overlapping with other titles in certain languages
  • Corrected the camouflage skill sound not playing correctly

Source