'Dying Light: Bad Blood' Is Techland's Take On Battle Royale

A new game mode is coming to Dying Light. Techland is creating its own take on the popular battle royale mode with its “Bad Blood” standalone expansion.

The game starts with six players, all of whom enter a zombie-filled zone. As you wander through the area, you’ll have to scavenge for weapons. You’ll be competing against other players for survival, but there are times when you need to work together, too. Dangerous and powerful zombies roam about, and you’ll need to kill them as a team to obtain valuable blood samples.

The overall objective is to escape the area before nightfall, and the only way out is by an extraction helicopter. Before you can leave, you need to collect a specific amount of blood samples in order to board the chopper. The cumulative total of the group’s collected samples determines the number of seats available, which means that all six people can board. However, Techland says that “everyone pays for their seat individually” with the samples in their inventory. You can choose to kill more zombies and acquire more samples or simply take out your comrades and steal their collection. Alliances in “Bad Blood” are temporary, so be wary of the people you play with, even if they decide to help you.

Techland is still working on the expansion, but you can join in on the action now as part of the studio’s Global Playtest event. You can sign up for it on the game’s website, and the first batch of keys, which are redeemable on Steam, will arrive sometime in the next week. Additional participants can join on over the course of the next several weeks. Because it’s a standalone expansion, you don’t need to own the original Dying Light to play.

During this early access period, you can post videos and screenshots of gameplay, and Techland wants you to report any major bugs on its forum page. The final version of “Bad Blood” is expected to launch sometime in 2018, although the studio didn’t provide a specific release date.