Dying Light could end up being the biggest surprise of the year. Heading into the title's January debut, things didn't look good: despite a promising showing the previous year, the latest E3 demo failed to impress. The game was delayed. Shortly before Dying Light arrived in stores, production problems postponed the game's international release. Even after the game came out, the title was plagued by glitches and controversy surrounding the game's review copies.

Yet, somehow, Dying Light persevered. The title went on to become 2015's first major hit, earning positive reviews and racking up over 3.2 million sales. Dying Light shows no signs of slowing down, either. Recently, a free update added a hard mode to the game alongside fifty new weapons, while a hoard mode and a new in-game location will arrive as DLC in May.

And that's just the official content. True to their word, Dying Light developer Techland is embracing the modding community by releasing a suite of professional-quality developer tools, allowing enterprising gamers to tinker with the game to suit their own tastes. While that's not news in and of itself - Techland has expressed support for modders in the past, after all - Techland just announced that these developer tools have recently entered a closed beta, meaning that some lucky players are already making changes to Dying Light's zombie-infested open-world - and that everyone else should get their chance relatively soon, too.

The announcement comes via Steam, where Techland posted a message inviting players to apply for beta access. Interested gamers are welcome to email Techland at devtools@techland.pl to ask for beta access, but be warned: the modding tools are still in an early state, and Techland advises players to be "prepared to come across some difficulties."

Still, this represents a unique and interesting opportunity for anyone who likes modding games, or is interested in the game development process. As Techland says, beta participants will be among "the first people to create content for Dying Light," and their feedback will "influence the development" of the tools going forward. Obviously, these tools apply to the PC version of the game only. Console gamers are, as always, out of luck.

In the past, Dying Light hasn't always had the most stable relationship with mods. Shortly after the game's release, Techland released a patch that was supposed to crack down on cheating during online multiplayer. Instead, the update removed mod support from all versions of the game (both single player and online). Techland apologized, and a subsequent fix restored modding capabilities; however, players using modded versions of the game can only interact with each other if they have the exact same mods installed.

Source: Techland