Dying Light Getting Hard Mode Soon, And It Sounds Brutal

In an effort to extend the life of the recently released zombie game Dying Light, Polish developer Techland today announced plans to release a series of free expansion packs for the open-world title. The highlight of the first free expansion, due in March, is Hard Mode.

In Dying Light's Hard Mode, players will face more difficult nighttime scenarios and deadlier, "more vicious" enemies. In addition, players will find fewer resources and supplies to scavenge, while you'll also need to utilize stealth and silence more than normal.

"A few gamers have already finished Dying Light and are asking for more. So we're going to give our community a new challenge that will put everything they learnt in the game to the test. Hard Mode is exactly that," producer Tymon Smektala said. "We're aiming to have it out around the start of March, if not sooner. Depends on how brutal we wanna make this on people."

In addition to Hard Mode, March's free Dying Light update will introduce "many improvements" to gameplay (none were named outright), as well as new character outfits. The free update will be available on all platforms: PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

On top of Dying Light's upcoming free DLC, Techland plans to release official modding tools for PC, and the developer also has a pipeline of paid expansions in the works.

Dying Light was released around the world last month, netting more than 1.2 million players in its first week. The game is available digitally globally, but the physical versions of the game were delayed in Europe, and will now arrive there later this month.

For more on Dying Light, check out GameSpot's review.