Dying Light Review

In recent memory, Dying Light might be one of the most derivative games I’ve played.  While in some cases that might be seen as an insult, for Techland’s open-world-zombie-parkour simulator, it’s borrowed from the best in order to make one of their best titles yet.  The influences are worn on it’s sleeve, taking Dead Island’s basic gameplay structure, and mixing it with a healthy modicum of movement from Mirror’s Edge, the end result being a very large game, with a some great interplay between gameplay systems.

Perhaps the largest downside of the game itself comes it’s incredibly wrote plot.  With a set-up told mostly through news broadcasts, the story is set in the fictional urban center of Harran, where a viral outbreak has gone to epidemic levels, resulting in a quarantine of the city.  After this initial bit of info, the game dumps you into the shoes of GRE undercover agent Kyle Crane.  You’re informed that an unfinished cure to the virus resides in the city with a rogue operative named “Rais.”  If deployed early, the cure could be deadly.  So find the rogue agent, get the virus, and get out.

The set-up, in a nutshell.

As a character, Crane is only slightly above the standard silent-protagonist.  Roger Craig Smith (humorously, the current voice of Chris Redfield in the Resident Evil series) does a decent job of creating a generally likable character, raising moral concerns here and being a general smart-ass there.  The rest of cast is largely forgettable, with plucky young runners and survivors aplenty pitted against evil-for-evil’s sake villains there.  Also, zombies.

Pretty much a parkour runners paradise.  Except for the monsters.

Much in the way that James Cameron’s Avatar kept things simple for a better focus on a sense of spectacle, the setting does a very good job of staying out of the way of Dying Light’s mechanics and core gameplay loop, allowing for a great amount of freedom to just sort of mess-around in the world of Harran.  While there’s a main story that will take most players between 15 and 20 hours to complete, along with a healthy dose of sidequests, there is very little pressure put on the player to complete these in any timely fashion.

If anything, character progression is going to drive more progress in the game than anything.  A well-implemented tutorial early on helps to establish the parkour movement that is so central to the experience.  Generally speaking, if you see a ledge, you can probably climb it.  If it looks like there’s an outcropping path on the face of a building, you can probably get to the roof.  These movement options in the early game are much appreciated in the early game when Crane is the most limited in terms of combat.

3 different types of skill progressions are present in the game, each with associated talent trees: combat (beat zombies up better), agility (dodge around zombies better), and survival (survive against zombies better? This one’s more vague, more of a sort of catch-all system).  Generally speaking, the more actions you perform associated with a tree, the more experience goes into each.  Climbing up buildings?  Agility points!  Dropkick a few zeds?  Combat points!  Best of all, the game’s HUD keeps track of these as you play, so you can see each of your actions and choice affect your overall character growth.

See this grappling hook "skill?" You need to get it.  ASAP.

Talent Tree’s are rather straightforward, with major milestone skills being unskippable and feeding into more options, the vast majority being incredibly useful or fun, some even completely game-changing.  Being able to clamber up buildings or sprint for longer is one thing.  A grappling hook later in the survival tree will complete upend how you navigate around the world, as you do your best batman impression ascending to a nearby roof.  While you’ll start the game as a fearful runner just trying to get away from an oncoming horde, by the end you’ll be more of a zombie-killing force of nature, effortlessly weaving (and cleaving) through enemies and rooftops alike.  Movement feels so good that you won’t even miss the lack of a quick travel function in game.

Weapon-wise, we’re playing with a much refined system from Dead Island.  Directional combat has been jettisoned (supposedly due to the complexity of implementing it with the parkour controls) for more generalized hack and slash feel to start.  Salvage a melee weapon of your choosing, add some modifications to it, and swing like crazy till it breaks.  Then repeat.  While durability meters in games generally get me down, the balance here feels just right.  You can temporarily repair implements, as well as get a perk to make them last longer.  In most cases however, if that machete with a car battery has broken, it means that there are new, more deadly implements to get your hands on, so go upgrade already!

Some swords have lighting.  Some swords have fire.  This one has both.

The crafting system around the main weapons is supplemented by some nifty throwable weapons, as well as firearms.  Knives and elemental homemade shurikens go a long way to help mix up combat with foes, especially those of the human variety.  Firearms ironically end up being much more limited in use, only really practical in some scripted areas.  Ammunition limits much of their use, but the sound they make in the overworld will usually end up drawing much stronger and agile foes.  Really, you probably won’t be missing them much, as melee combat gets supplemented by a bevy of special moves, like drop-kicks and curb stomps.

Another system that helps add a ton of variety to the game is difference between daytime and nighttime gameplay.  While you may be as carefree as a meat grinder in a sausage factory during the day, super-powered viral zombies make missions after dark a much deadlier prospect.  Dying Light elects to become a sort of parkour-stealth game at these points, going so far as to show you vision cones on a minimap of these feral foes.  Cross one, and you’ll either be running for your life, or dead in a few hits.  Once you realize this, especially in the early game, you’ll be doing your damndest to get to a safe zone before the sun sets.  To compensate for this shift in your characters dominance, you’re awarded double experience for activities at night, as well as some nighttime only missions.

The main reason you don't want to stay out late at night.

To round out the gameplay experience, co-op adds a lot of nice wrinkles to everything just mentioned.  Hordes of zombies can be much more manageable with a friend watching your back, and races between two parkour champions add extra life to the world.  At the same time, extra risk is assumed with a “be the zombie” mode employing an even more powerful viral foe that can invade a game a-la Dark Souls style and prey upon human players.  The experience can vary a great deal, as with many multiplayer implements, so for best results, play these modes with friends.

Dying Light stands more as a sequel to Dead Island (despite there being a Dead Island 2 in the works), as it’s managed to increase the scope from the previous game, as well as iterate on former complaints and add some solid systems that make this game infinitely more interesting.  Weather from close attention to industry trends or some sort of Minority Report device allowing for viewing of the future, the trend of enhanced mobility from many of last years first person games translates incredibly well into the overpopulated zombie genre. This is an incredibly strong game so early in 2015 and is absolutely worth a look if you were a fan of Dead Island or Mirror’s Edge.

Dying Light is a zombie experience unlike anything I've encountered before. While many can say that the zombie apocalypse setting has become stale in an entertainment setting that is overflowing with zombie themed games and shows Dying Light shines very bright, pun intended. While the overall game has a very similar progression and quest system to Dead Island, the openness and parkour freedom you have in Harran is similar to experiences like Far Cry mixed with Mirrors Edge. After chugging nearly 50 hours into the game I can easily say I'm hooked. The combat is fluent and extremely satisfying. Leveling up feels rightfully rewarding and learning new tricks to dispatch the undead only made me want to reach that next level.

While the story is filled with clichés and throw away characters that might as well have signs that say "eat me" on their backs, Dying light's story is enough to keep the player progressing. The side missions can be a bit annoying but the rewards are usually well worth the trouble. The rewards can be so good that going to the vendor late game seems a bit pointless. Why buy a nice machete from the vendor when I can probably find one just as useful by lock picking a police van.

By far Dying Light's greatest strength isn't the zombies, but it lies in the day night cycle of game play change from action zombie apocalypse to a stealthy horror game and the large free running playground of Harran. I love how running from place to place and the random encounters make the game so addicting. Adding in the day to night cycle keeps the game fresh and anyone that wants a risky challenge is more than welcome to try their luck on the night shift. Yet the game never forces you to play at night save for one or two mandatory missions and that's a nice bonus to the amount of freedom you get.

While I have minor complaints about the loot and the story, Dying Light is sure to be an addictive experience that any Dead Island fan or zombie fan is sure to find a ton of fun.