Last year Techland released Dying Light which turned out to be a pleasant surprise with its drastic change in gameplay compared to the Dead Island series. Now they’re expanding upon it with The Following, an expansion that takes you to a whole new area with a vehicle that you’ll mostly use to smash zombies with.
Dying Light: The Following – Enhanced Edition
Developer: Techland
Price: $60
Platform: PC, PS4, & Xbox One
MonsterVine was supplied with a PS4 code for review
Following Dying Light’s incredibly anticlimactic ending, The Following kicks things off by hinting at the possibility of a cure (again) in the countryside of Harran. It’s your job to then go off and explore this new area and find out if the rumors are legit or not. My biggest issue with the main game last year was its story being as flat and uninteresting as an action film released in January and The Following makes no attempts to remedy this. The rural denizens worship a cult that is apparently able to cure the zombie illness and it’s a premise that could have led to a really interesting and creepy story, but it’s just so nonexistent that I sometimes forgot why I was doing what I was. The story isn’t even progressing much as you play; story missions are locked until you complete enough side-missions to reach the next rank necessary to unlock them so the bulk of the quests are errands. As I’m playing the game I’m sitting there wondering why the hell should I care about any of these cardboard characters I’m interacting with. The story in Dying Light was pretty forgettable, but at least it had some sort of a structure to it. The Following just lazily trudges you along and expects you to care because it says so. Now what the game’s plot lacks in substance, it more than makes up for in variety. You’re always doing something different in some unique part of the map in a slightly subtle way of getting you to explore the various spots on the map so even though the story is lackluster, the missions at least keep you thoroughly entertained.
The Following trades the sprawling city and slums for massive open landscapes which drastically changes the way you play the game. The most obvious change is the inclusion of a Mad Max style dune buggy that’s your main means of travel across the massive new map. The lack of buildings means you can’t easily outrun the zombie horde which leads to you having to play things a little more carefully so it’s smart to always have your vehicle ready and fueled to get out of a sticky situation. The buggy has its own skill tree that you’ll level up by simply using your vehicle by driving fast, ramming zombies, participating in vehicle missions, or nailing some sick jumps. The buggy follows the same sort of power progression you did in the base game, where you start out incredibly weak and eventually turn into a zombie killing machine. Once you get the ramming gear, flamethrower, and mine dispenser added to your buggy it becomes more fun. Just as your weapons degrade, so do the parts of your buggy. There are five parts that you need to make sure to maintain or replace with superior versions. Thankfully the degradation of your parts happens a lot slower than it does with your weapons so you don’t have to worry about having to replace the wheels every few minutes. Besides upgrading your vehicle with weapons and mods, you’re also able to customize it with paintjobs and various adornments like charms or bobble heads that are hidden throughout the map. The only real annoyance with the buggy is that since the world is so large, if you die and respawn in a hunting tower (glorified checkpoint stations) there’s no way to recall your vehicle. If you’re lucky, your ride will be a short walk away but most of the time it’ll be a decent trek.
Of course, the new buggy is fun but it isn’t without its faults. The early game can be a bit of a rough start since your buggy isn’t as well equipped to deal with the faster zombies as it is later on in the game. The very first mission stands out since by the time I had finished it night had come and the next objective was a timed race to another location on the map which of course required my buggy. With no way to quit out of the mission, I was stuck having to deal with the stronger night zombies who tore my car to shreds. With a car that wouldn’t run due to every part being broken and no cars in sight to loot for parts, I was forced to have to sit there watching the mission fail itself over and over until daylight came. I was then able to properly find some materials, fix my ride, and complete the mission albeit still having to worry about the fast daytime zombies that can easily keep up with your buggy. Starting without any resources to repair your buggy means instead of starting the game having fun with your new ride, you’re actually spending more time running around scavenging for materials so that you’re stocked up. It’s a hurdle once crossed turns an initially sour experience into pure joy.
Besides the buggy, The Following also includes various tweaks to the base game and multiplayer, a massive new zombie that functions as its own boss fight, new weapons such as the crossbow, a new bounty system, and the legendary skill tree. At every safe zone you’ll be able to access a dart board that will provide you with a list of dozens of bounties you can complete for a massive amount of XP for specific skill trees. One might reward you with several thousand agility XP for climbing a lot of objects while another might give driving XP for running over scarecrows. They’re decent little distractions that you can have active while playing but it is a bit of a pain that you can only have one active at a time. For those who played so much Dying Light last year that they maxed out the skill trees, Techland has added in a new Legendary tree (along with the buggy skill tree) that has 250 levels. The way it works is that if your agility level is maxed out, then whatever XP you’d have normally earned for doing agility maneuvers will instead fuel your Legendary rank. Leveling up here will reward you with new outfits and passive upgrades like increased health or weapon damage. It’s not a huge feature, but it’s nice to see that there’s something to still earn even after you’ve maxed out some of the previous skill trees.
The Final Word
The Following is basically just more Dying Light but with a car and that’s perfectly fine. I had a lot of fun with the original game so being able to play more of it with a slight twist was enough to get me back into the groove of looting and killing zombies.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
