Summary [9.0 out of 10]

Telling the story of a GRE agent dropped into the zombie infested fictional city of Haran on an undercover mission who is promptly bitten and infected, Dying Light is an incredibly engaging game with tension, challenge and fun in spades. Offering a very well executed parkour based movement system, customizable weapons, a variety of missions and a day and night cycle that have significant impact on the gameplay, Dying Light is the complete package and keeps the player invested while giving free reign to do what you want how you want to with tight controls and well built systems that allow for emergent gameplay and variety. This is a difficult game to put down.

What it’s like

Dead Island: Given that this is a Techland game it is not super surprising that the aesthetics of the game are very similar to their previous game Dead Island especially when you take into consideration the degradable improvised weapons and first person perspective. The main difference is that Dying Light is what Dead Island should have been. That awesome Dead Island trailer that suggested badass returns? That trailer should have been for this game.

Dead Rising Series: The open world make your own more badass weapons by gathering materials dynamic is also reminiscent of the Dead Rising series particularly when you add in day and night cycles and traversal that suggests that you shouldn’t be running around the street. Some of the skills you can gain remind of Dead Rising as well so if you dug the action there you will probably like what is going on here.

Mirror’s Edge: First person parkour pretty much screams Mirror’s Edge. To my mind, it works better here.

The Great

Gameplay: Gameplay is always a kind of broad category and with Dying Light it is even more so as the game changes as you go along. What starts as a terrifyingly tense game of cat and mouse with the player struggling to complete missions against the harsh and unforgiving wave of zombies eventually becomes a fun sandbox game of destruction that has you doing batshit crazy things because you can. The game is deadly serious and the game play reflects that but it also allows freedom for improvisation and clever strategy that allows you to play how you want and complete tasks how you want to complete them. Even in the later stages of the game when your character has amassed a slew of weapons and skills there is still a challenge available so if you get too big for your breeches the game will still check you but the breadth and scope of what you can do is such that it is hard to get bored and the challenge never lets up.

Progression: This ties in with the gameplay but is a big enough deal to garner its own bullet point. The game fundamentally changes as you progress through the story in terms of how you go about things and how you encounter the challenges around you. As mentioned above, the challenges themselves never really let up and you can’t let yourself get sloppy but the more you move through the game the better you get at what you want to do and that offers up some breathing room. When you first start out, your feet touching the ground for any length of time often leads to severe to fatal damage. Your weapons are weak and you don’t have a ton of movement options outside of running and jumping onto things that are too high for zombies to reach. Of course, making too much noise the virals come out and that is a whole different ball game as they are recently infected and can run, jump and generally ruin your shit. But everything you do gets you experience points that go into different pools that allow you to level up and gain new skills in one of three categories. Finishing missions and liberating safe houses will give you Survivor points. Jumping and escaping give you Agility points, and combat gives you Combat points. Each of these open up new abilities that you can tailor to your play style and you tend to get more of what you do the most of so the points you get are usually the things you would find most useful. These skills really make a difference in how well you can survive and while you still shouldn’t just hop in a crowd of zombies and hope for the best, you will eventually get to a point where you can more confidently do what you want  and how you want. The night and day cycle plays a big part here too as night is dangerous as hell but doubles all of your experience accrual. Items like the grappling hook also change how you play so it is clear that there are a lot of ways to improve and progress in the game which goes a long way toward keeping it fresh and fun.

Tension: Where Dying Light is different than a lot of horror themed games is that rather than relying on jump scares or big moments, Dying Light keeps a constant sense of tension going any time you aren’t in a safe house. There are few trivial encounters with infected and any meeting with them could be your ass if you aren’t paying enough attention. Particularly in the early stages of the game, you always feel on edge and the game does a great job of maintaining this and paying it off as it knows just when to spring larger scares and up the stakes. The night cycle is a great example of this as there are moments where you are forced to be out at night and often times it is when you are not super prepared so the tension jacks up to overdrive and can offer some truly scary moments.

Controls: There is a bit of a learning curve for getting the hang of the heavy platforming based parkour controls but once you become familiar the controls function very, very well. There were times when I would get in a tight spot and fumble the controls but that is really on me more than the way the controls are set up. There is a lot to do and you have a lot of options for how you want to play with the ability to change it all up on the fly so the controls are particularly important and they really work well.

Weapons: In a game like this weapons are key and variety needs to address why you would want to use one weapon over another. Here, the weapons have different values and effectiveness for different situations. Some players may really like a two handed approach while others may like closer quarters, quicker option. Dying Light doesn’t reinvent the wheel here or make huge leaps forward in game weapons but there is a lot of variation between weapons and while I tended to stick mostly with hand axes, I switched up weapons quite a bit and did so for good reasons at the time. Fire arms are included and work well but you can’t just get an assault rifle and become invincible. The game encourages trying different weapons and different approaches and then it gives you the right tools for the job. The customization takes it all a step further in that you can improve your weapons a lot and some combinations and upgrades only work with specific types of weapons so if you need a particular effect you might have to change things up. The degrade/repair system also encourages changing up weapons often but it does so in a way that isn’t irritating or momentum killing. I usually hate degradable weapons because they are often a pain in the ass but Dying Light implements this in such a way that it feels like another thing you have to pay attention to to survive but not a burdensome annoyance.

Variety: As mentioned above, this is a game of variety. The side quests and missions offer up different sorts of things to be doing and the progression of the player goes a very long way toward giving you a lot of options. Missions can be completed in a variety of different ways as emergent gameplay becomes the order of the day. Can’t sort out that compound of bandits? Wait until night and then alert the Volatiles. You can hide and let the Volatiles clean out the camp and then you collect the rewards come morning. You want to take the direct approach but running and gunning isn’t getting it? Use stealth and pick the bandits off one by one with stealth kills. Or switch to explosives. Or use traps. There are tons of ways to deal with missions and you can combine different play styles together however you want to allow for your own unique approach. As far as sandbox games go, Dying Light is among the cream of the crop.

Graphics: This game is just gorgeous. The character models are well done with great animation and a ridiculous amount of detail. The visuals inform the atmosphere and go a long way toward setting the tone. There are a fair number of assets that look like they came over from Dead Island but that was a pretty game in its own right and this is new gen beauty. The city is sprawling and when you climb on top of a building and look out over it you are likely to get some vertigo while admiring the beauty of the environment even as blown out and zombie ridden as it is. This game looks fantastic.

The Good

Story: The main story in Dying Light has some pretty good moments here and there and keeps driving you forward into new areas and gives you new things to do but it falls a bit short of being truly compelling. The characters and Crane’s attachment to them seem a little rushed and could be better fleshed out but overall the story is satisfying if straightforward. The side quests, however, are where the real meat and potatoes are in this game as you get into some really dark and twisted material that can change the way you feel about the situation and go a long way toward making the game feel real and grounded. The main story isn’t bad but it could have been a lot better.

The Bad

Ending: It might sound nitpicky and I can’t go into detail without spoiling things but the ending boss battle felt really flat and underwhelming. When boss fights earlier in the game were tense and challenging, the final fight feels detached and almost lackadasical. There is a lot of intensity leading up to the final moments and then it just resolves with a whimper. that is really too bad.

Conclusion [9.0 out of 10]

Dying Light is a great gaming experience from start to finish with just the right amount of variety and options to keep you interested and engaged throughout its entire run time. There is a ton to do and a lot to see and so many ways to do and see those things that the mind boggles a bit. The story could use some work and the ending feels flat but the game is consistently tense, challenging and allows you to play how you want. There isn’t much more that you could ask for than that.