Dying Light (2015)

I found this game too complex for me. A lot of items/crafts, not too much handholding, and there are places where if you play strictly the main story you are going to get a bit stuck (e.g. when you get to a place and a guy on the roof starts shooting at you, and you don't have guns, only pipes/wood with nails). For me it got frustrating quickly.

That being said, the parkour implementation and feeling is interesting and new for me, graphics quality is very good. I like that it's not too scary, but at the same time some of the enemies (the bombers) I do find highly disgusting.

Dropped.

I wanted to like this game, I really, really did. The concept is neat and the first hours of game are genuinelly fun... and yet, at some point, it goes away. The game starts to throw you into closed rooms with a bunch of zombies, letting the weak parts of the combat shine, and the difficulty is all over the place. I've died in the exact same point way, way too many times in a row to feel motivated to continue.

Wow. The final mission of this game is truly, truly atrocious. Awful climbing, boring combat and it ends with a fucking QTE. Ho-ly shit. And not just that, but the fucking morons who made this game don't tell you which direction to move into but instead show W, A, S or D. I think i had to replay it 5 times because no one in their right mind knows which letter is which direction without looking at the keyboard.

And then you start The Following and there's another awful chase mission that i had to replay 3-5 times because i forgot to press Space to grab a ladder at the very end.

Imagine making a fun open world game in which you can brutally murder slightly dirty humans zombies and then forcing the player to sit through godawful scripted bullshit. Ugh.

My experiences with Techland's Zombie Games

I had tried to play Dying Light in 2015 as a local co-op game on PC with a friend, but our playthrough was cut short only about 2-3 hours into the game. One of the few things I can remember is a feeling of anticipation to "get into the city area" and aside from that, I do remember enjoying the game quite a bit. 2015 was a different time where any open world was still very impressive and interesting, plus the game was proving itself beyond that merit.

In 2019 or so I played through Dead Island and the Riptide sequel on 360, not knowing that that these were developed by the same studio who had created Dying Light. Although I had moments of truly not enjoying Dead Island, both grew on me immensely, perhaps even for their janky nature. I had played single player in these, which I found to be very difficult past a certain point, it seems these games were made for multiplayer or maybe I just had a bad class/build. I died a lot but the games were still a ton of fun, and more importantly-- memorable. I am also slowly working on a completion run of the Definitive Edition re-releases. I will probably play the games again a decade or so from now, if not only for the nostalgia.

Trying Dying Light for a second time in 2022

Now I am revisiting Dying Light on the Series S. I am only about half an hour in and looking forward to this, particularly when thinking ahead to playing the 2022 sequel. It's also now very satisfying being able to compare Dying Light to Dead Island, the latter of which I am very comfortable and familiar with.

Already the developers inclusion of parkour and increased use of verticality is a huge improvement on Dead Island. It seems that they had changed the UI significantly. Overall the presentation has very clearly been upgraded.

Will Dead Island 2 Succeed?

Looking ahead to Dead Island 2, I have some amount of hesitation. DI2 will no longer be developed by Techland, and I can't help but feel that it will turn out to be a subpar product, in a similar fashion to the disastrous 2022 Saints Row reboot.