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.

Playtime: 76,5 hours (both campaigns completed + most main game side-missions)

Intro

Dying Light is a looter shooter with parkour elements. You explore three different maps, killing zombies, collecting loot and jumping/grappling across the terrain.

The Good

• The core gameplay is really fun.
• You brutally murder slightly dirty humans zombies.
• Obliterating heads by stomping them and shoving zombies into traps is really fun.
• Grappling hook! Yay! Every game should have one!
• Nice variety of weapons.
• The open terrain + buggy in the DLC campaign (The Following) is a nice change of pace.

The Bad

• Really bad crafting menu.
• Clunky travel between the two main campaign maps.
• Attacking nests is too annoying.
• Voice actor for main character is miscast.
• Story is pretty dumb.
• Some of the platforming is clunky or otherwise bad.
• Escort missions are relatively hard with poor rewards.

The Ugly

• Godawful scripted events that you're almost certainly going to fail at least once.
• Truly terrible boss battle with impossible QTE (WASD instead of arrows).
• Looting and crafting takes up way, way too much time.
• Everything respawns making every feel inconsequential.
• Daily quests and other MMO elements.
• Levelled weapons. Can that cancer die already please?

Conclusion

Dying Light takes the Dead Island formula and somehow turns it into an actually fun game. It would've been a lot better without the repetitive elements like respawning enemies and looting. Like, i enjoy butching people with some dirt on their face so why make me get X purple items so i can make Y weapon? It is still a really fun game, just really frustrating in parts and about 10 hours too long.

Pretty enjoyable traversal mechanics, and a good (mostly) melee FPS, with a serviceable but weak/uninspired plot.

Could have got another star if the story/characters were better - the protag is just a standard tough guy with no real personality, background, or motivations of his own. The plot is fairly boilerplate "evil corporation/government" stuff. The NPCs are the standard cast of background characters, mostly more annoying than they are interesting, with not enough heart to inspire much feelings about them. Side quests make for a decent excuse to run around and enjoy the game's mechanics, but with one exception aren't all that compelling story-wise.

I had fun, but finished the MSQ and don't feel compelled to do the uncompleted side content or DLC. If I didn't have other, newer games in my backlog I might spend some more time just enjoying the game for it's mechanics.

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.

I can overlook the story for the mechanically interesting elements of the game.

Parkour in first person has some great moments let down by some peculiar frustrations. In particular, there is no mechanism to climb down or make a 180 turn when hanging from scaffolding.

I enjoyed the lack of fast travel. I always like having to plan routes across difficult terrain. It reminds me of what I loved about Far Cry 2. The interaction with the standard few enemy types helped elevate the challenge.

I enjoyed the time I spent with the game, and sought out the side quests, but was not interested in progressing the main story once it became more scripted

Dying Light is a successor of Dead Island series. I've finished both previous games and they were okay: not great games, but quite fun. This one is pretty similar to them, but instead of an island we have a city full of zombies. The main addition here is a parkour system, but the core mechanics of cutting enemies into pieces and looting everything still the same. I wish looting was better as it's not really rewarding, I mostly played with the same weapon that I found in the first hours of the game. Co-op mode is well implemented and I recommend to find a friend for beating DL, because everything in better in co-op, as you know. It is a good game, but there are a lot of things that could be better, so I hope devs will improve this formula in the sequel.

The Following DLC surprised me as it is a big addition to the game: there are new location, buggies that you can drive and a lot of new quests. 15 years ago it could be considered as a decent add-on!

I consider this one of the best zombie FPS games of all time (the other favourite is Left 4 Dead 2). This game has it's flaws, but overall a really great experience for me. I have yet to try it's DLCs, but it offers so much content, that't it stands strong even without them. I heard a lot of bad about the story from others, but I think it's fine, though it could have been longer with more personal attachments to feel the pain of each death. The parkour is a great addition to the traversal and make this Dead Island succesor unique and more complex gameplay wise.

The Good:

• Kyle Crane is a badass character, who makes his own mistakes, but grows in the process
• The parkour style movement makes longer travels more enjoyable. The game also offers challanges to improve your skills
• The crafting system is complex and provides you all the tools to create your perfect zombie killing weapon. Yes, they break in time, but for me it only adds to the realism factor and you can craft a different one, to try out more playstyles.
• A lengthier DLC that I have yet to try (so I will update this section after that :) )
• An enjoyable story with a not bad antigonist
• The grapling hook, which gives the game a spin and makes you more confident during those long nights
• Volatiles and a different experience during the night. It can be scary and a perfect adrenaline rush, but also satisfying surviving a night
• Various zombies
• Craftable gadgets and items, to help you during your adventure
• Some say the multiplayer mode is even better, but I have yet to try that aswell, alongside co-op (will update this section)
• The game still gets updates and community challanges to this day, the developers are active and try to listen to their fanbase to make the game even better
• You can find new weapon blueprint codes online, (though some older ones are deactivated now :/ )

The Bad:

• The story could have been lengthier with deeper feelings towards characters
• More types of firearms would be appreciated, since you have to use them a lot against Rais' thugs
• The sneaking part of the game could be improved, you only have a few tools to use, and noise means more virals :)

Playthroughs: 2x

Difficulty: Normal, but curious about that Nightmare mode :D