14 DAY TRIAL // Techland confirms that, during the development of the upcoming Dying Light zombie game, it went to parkour co-founder David Belle to verify the free-running maneuvers present in the game and ensure that they're realistic yet still accessible. In a new video, the Polish studio showcases this impressive collaboration.
Parkour is already present in quite a few different games nowadays, from the Assassin's Creed series to Mirror's Edge and many more.
Dying Light benefits from David Belle's insight
However, with Dying Light, developer Techland went straight to the source, collaborating with the co-founder of the parkour movement, David Belle, who went from underground free-running star to acting in movies like District 13, or coordinating the stunts in the likes of Transporter 2.
According to a statement from the studio, Dying Light was envisioned as a free-running game from the beginning, and after developing the animations, the team went to Belle to verify their quality and make sure that they're depicting free-running in a realistic way.
"David’s influence really helped us push the parkour system to a point where it felt authentic yet still intuitive and worked perfectly in-game. We’ve had so many journalists and external playtesters say to us that this really is game-changer in terms of first person perspective freedom of movement." Adrian Ciszewski, game director, says about the collaboration.
In a special video, which you can admire below, the exact input from Belle during the development process is shown. He helped the motion capture actors emulate smooth movements, and even if he has aged, he shows that he can still perform some mighty impressive tricks.
Dying Light is set to debut later this month, on January 27, in North America, and January 30, in Europe, for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One platforms. Unfortunately, in most of the PAL regions, such as Europe, Asia, Australia, or the Middle East, the physical disc release has been pushed back for an undisclosed period of time.
