Peel back the curtain on the cinematic workflows behind Dying Light: The Beast to show you why perfection is an enemy of progress. Discover how to bypass the "blank page" problem by using Ripomatics - rough, fast-paced edits built from existing material. And we’ll dive into the HumanBox method, a low-fidelity approach to layout that lets your imagination do the heavy lifting while you focus on composition, pacing, and impact.

Game engines are not just cold tools: To unleash creativity, designers need controlled freedom in working with data. Part of this freedom is guarantee that whatever they come up with will work as intended - and not that it will pretend to work, hide and set itself on fire at the worst possible moment. This guarantee is at the core of this talk: Let’s take a peek at how close cooperation between content and technology teams helped with releasing Dying Light The Beast in great technical state.

Join Game Director Nathan Lemaire and Composer/Music Designer Olivier Deriviere for an inside look at how gameplay and music intertwine to elevate the player experience. Drawing from their work on Dying Light 2 and Dying Light: The Beast, they will share practical insights, creative processes, and concrete examples that highlight the powerful synergy between game design and adaptive music.

A dive into the industry transformations of recent years, how they’re redefining opportunities for artists, and how you can navigate this evolving terrain to actively shape your future. We’ll explore key market trends, major pop-culture shifts, the changing dynamics of social media, and - most importantly - the evolving needs and expectations of game studios. The talk will also offer practical guidance on how artists can position themselves strategically, strengthen their relevance in production, and make informed creative and career decisions.

I joined Dying Light as a junior game designer and spent the next 10+ years growing alongside the series, eventually becoming its Franchise Director. In this talk, I’ll share 10+ lessons from that journey and reflect on the choices, surprises, and hard truths of building a game series over the long term, covering game design, direction, creative leadership, community management, and publishing.

Hey Leaders! We Suck!" isn't an insult - it's a necessary reality check. We sit at the top, often isolated from honest feedback, blinded by our authority, and unaware that we are the biggest bottleneck in development. This talk explores the "lonely throne" dynamic that prevents leaders from seeing their own errors. Join an experienced developer for a brutally honest "autopsy" of leadership mistakes and learn actionable methods to audit your behavior, gather data, and finally get out of your team's way.