Harran Virus

The outbreak that turned Harran into a quarantine zone, and its deadlier THV strain.

In Dying Light a mysterious viral outbreak in the Middle Eastern city of Harran turns most of the population into hyper-aggressive zombie-like creatures, forcing Harran's Ministry of Public Defence to quarantine parts of the city. The file Rais steals proves that the Global Relief Effort intends to weaponise the virus rather than develop a cure, while the Tower's Dr. Imran Zere and later Dr. Allen Camden work on one.

Lore & Background

Dying Light 2 Stay Human picks up the story: the Harran outbreak ended with the death of everyone in the city, and the GRE eventually developed a vaccine for the Harran Virus, but kept experimenting on it in secret as a biological weapon. In 2021 a mutated variant, the Tachytransmissive Harran Virus (THV), escaped a GRE lab and started a second, faster and deadlier pandemic that swept the world. In the event called The Fall the vaccine and Antizin became ineffective against the new strain, though an infected person's symptoms can be suppressed with ultraviolet light.