Dying Light
Developer: Techland
Price: $60
Platform: PC, PS4, and Xbox One
MonsterVine was supplied with a PS4 code for Dying Light
It’s been two years since we were shown Dying Light and Techland’s zombie runner is finally here. What they’ve delivered is a game that’s content to stay smack in the middle of Mirror’s Edge and Dead Island without doing anything significant enough to propel itself past its influences.
The game opens up with special operative Kyle Crane being dropped into a quarantined city to look for a rogue agent who stole some files relating to the zombie outbreak. From there things take a pretty predictable route as you infiltrate the good guys but feel bad about it and suddenly decide to save everyone and to hell with your orders. You most likely have seen this same plot a half dozen times before and Dying Light does nothing new with it. The story definitely isn’t the reason you come to this game but you unfortunately have to slog your way through it to unlock things like multiplayer or the amazing second map.
Obviously the combat is what makes or breaks a zombie game and it’s super satisfying here. There’s a really good sense of impact when you smack a zombie with a pipe or drop kick them off a building. While the game lacks the slight depth of Dead Island, as you won’t be targeting specific limbs to break them, it’s still good fun swinging a bat and seeing heads fly.
Just like in Dead Island you’ll be collecting a plethora of weapons with varying stats that you can craft into crazier weapons that have special effects like bleed or electricity. The game does a good job of supplying you with a near constant supply of weapons but my main issue with them is that they can only be repaired a certain amount of times before they’re permanently broken. This means any upgrades applied to a weapon eventually become useless as the weapon will need to be replaced with something new after a while. The game combats this by drowning you in weapons but it still feels kind of shitty applying some useful upgrades to a cool weapon only for it to become worthless after a while. There are a few skills that increase the longevity of your weapons but it’d still be cool to be able to keep a particular weapon you like without it becoming permanently broken.
So as you’re smashing zombie skulls in you’ll be leveling up three skill trees that each have a pretty hefty amount of abilities to learn. There’s the survival, agility, and power tree which all earn XP by doing actions related to that tree. In other words running around, jumping, sliding, etc will earn you agility XP while anything to do with combat earns power XP. It’s a smart system that I wish more games would use but it does end up feeling like a huge grind at times.
The thing that separates Dying Light from other games in the genre is its parkour system. It’s not as intricate as Mirror’s Edge, but it’s still crazy fun to use. You’re never strong enough to take on hordes of zombies so escape is going to be your go-to option most of the time. Sprinting out a window to grab the ledge of the adjacent building and climbing it to continue your escape on the rooftops is a situation you’re going to experience a lot and it’s all really easy to pull off. You simply jump with a press of a button and hold that same button to grab ledges. At first you’ll move at a sluggish pace but after leveling up a bit you’ll soon be running across the map in no time. Techland did a great job with capturing a good sense of speed and momentum when traversing the city and it’s the one thing that really elevates this game above its peers. The only issue I have with this system is that sometimes you clearly don’t connect with a ledge but Crane will sort of slide towards it in midair and grab on. It’s a really jarring thing that I understand was likely done to make the game more forgiving. Whatever the reason, it’s incredibly noticeable and always has me questioning whether my jump is close enough to grab onto this invisible ledge or not.
With a day/night cycle the game adds some choice as to when to tackle certain goals like side-quests or story missions. When night comes the game gets dark, like darker than real life dark and suddenly the danger ramps up. Special zombies, like Volatiles, stick their ugly faces out and suddenly you’ve got a zombie who can run and climb as fast as you and are pretty damn strong too. There’s a genuine sense of dread when you get the notification that night is approaching as you desperately try to make it to a safe-house while you still have some bit of sunlight. Being able to look behind you while you’re running from a pack of zombies chasing you just adds to the tension. You do have the option of just sleeping through the night but you’d be missing out on the double XP you earn at night and the opportunity to lure special infected to deal with human enemies. In a co-op game I played we were all struggling with this mission since none of us had guns and we had to fight half a dozen soldiers with rifles. We decided to sleep to night, sneak into the area, toss a few firecrackers to lure the special infected, and watch the two sides tear each other apart. Unfortunately night becomes pretty nonthreatening later in the game once you acquire some decent guns capable to putting down any zombies in your path with relative ease. Nonetheless, it’s still a really cool experience to be playing co-op, everyone’s watch suddenly beeping to alert us of sundown, and everyone looking at each other in a shared “Oh shit” moment as we race to the closest safe-house.
Despite being surrounded by zombies the city feels empty thanks to the lack of things to do. There are countless side-quests to do but every single one basically amounts to you having to go to some location, grab something or kill someone, and then report back. It’s a shame that these are your biggest scores for XP since they’re such a chore to work through. There are also some agility and combat challenges you can do which are a little more interesting, but not by much.
So besides the singleplayer campaign you can also tackle it in four player co-op which is what you definitely want to do. It’s a blast running around the map with three other people and kicking zombies around for giggles. In a way to add some variety to the co-op experience, there are challenges that will pop up like “Kill the most zombies” for you to do. They’re quick and require no load to do but it is kind of lame how every player has to agree to the challenge for it to get started. If even one guy refuses to hit the accept button then the challenge won’t start which can be kind of a bummer when you have No-Fun McGee on your team.
The other multiplayer offering is the Be the Zombie mode. In it you play as a suped up version of a zombie that will invade the games of other players. Killing other players and protecting your nests will net you XP that you can then use to purchase new skills for your zombie character. When playing singleplayer you can even pick what time you can be invaded or turn it off entirely. It’s a really neat mode if you can actually manage to connect to someone.
The Final Word
Overall Dying Light is a solid game. It’s got some satisfying as hell combat and running around the city never gets old, but it’s unfortunately saddled with a forgettable story and uninteresting side-quests.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
