I have to begin this review by addressing any concerns to those that might be worried that Dying Light will be plagued by the bugs and glitches that were found in Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide. Dying Light has many similarities to Dead Island (after all it is from the same developers), but simply put, it’s just so much better and even more fun than I had originally imagined. First up, while there is a story, it’s somewhat forgetful and after the first few hours of venturing into the fictional city of Harran (Turkey), you probably won’t care much for a deep and meaningful plot.
You play as an undercover parkour expert operative going by the name of Kyle Crane, voiced by Rodger Craig Smith, notably known for his roles as Chris Redfield (Resident Evil), Bruce Wayne/Batman (Batman Arkham Origins) and Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Assassin’s Creed). Crane is sent to discover and recover a file that could seriously damage the agency that he represents (G.R.E/ Global Relief Effort). To retrieve this file, he must gain the trust of ruthless rogue agent Kadir “Rais” Sulaiman, which proves to be no easy task as Crane is torn between loyalty to his company, a revolution type group that saved his ass from death upon his arrival in Harren, and of course making sure that Rais doesn’t discover Cranes intentions, which will make turning into a zombie, a blessing.
Gameplay-wise, Dying Light had been pre-labelled as Dead Island with Mirror’s Edge gameplay mechanics and in some ways that is perhaps true. When you play Dying Light, those that have played Dead Island will see a lot of similarities, some minor then others, but there still there. This is why it’s so hard not to talk about Dying Light, without talking about Dead Island. In many ways, you can tell that this is the direction that Techland wanted to go with the Dead Island series, but for whatever reason, Techland and Deep Silver were not on the same page. However, that deficit was to Warner Bros. gain. In terms of Mirror’s Edge, the influence is there for all too see, only the gameplay is far easier to pick up and much more forgiving, which perhaps makes the gameplay more appealing to a wider audience.
Dying Light will take a good hour or so to grow accustom too, but once you begin to level up and you capture that flow, you’ll be parkouring like Mo Farah on a pogo stick. You may feel a little stiff to begin with, especially with the combat, but that soon changes as you progress into the game. Of course you will earn XP via the main campaign missions, but you will level up much faster by partaking in the many side-missions. As you might expect, with the valuable XP to level up, comes the customary skill-tree system. One gripe that I have with some skill-trees in other games, is that by the time you unlock some of the best skills, it’s so late on in the game, that you don’t get much of chance to use them.
Now while you can’t unlock all the best skills early on, you can jump the queue a little, so to speak. So depending on the skill-tree route that you take, you can unlock some skills, that perhaps in other games, you wouldn’t get until really late on. The skill-tree is broken up into three main categories, Survivor, Agility and Power. Each XP that you earn will be allocated to one of the three categories. What XP you earn, will depend on your in-game actions. For example, the more you run and climb, the more XP you will earn for Agility to improve your climbing. Earn points for Survivor and you might choose the ability to craft more efficiently or the more you kill, the more XP you will earn towards Power.
Other then the side-activities, quite possibly the quickest way to level up is by venturing out into the night. But, and this is a big BUT, zombies are not only more aggressive during the night, but you will also encounter extra deadly zombies such as the Volatile (these are strong infect and incredibly fast). These sinister creatures will rip you apart in no time if you alert them to your presence. So if you are playing out in the dark, your go-to tactics should be stealth. Unless you’re very skilled at the game, you will get caught, so it’s of the utmost importance that you tread carefully, check your surroundings and always look for an escape route. Thankfully you can craft items such as firecrackers that will distract most forms of infected to its location, giving you the opportunity to sneak on by. If you manage to survive the night during missions, you will earn double the XP, unlike the usual XP system during the day.
Before the night falls, you will get a heads up by your in-game companions. So it’s up to you whether you continue on with your missions, or if you make way for the nearest safe house. In fact the safe houses are key to survival, but to acquire them, you must clear out the undead or human foes. Once the safe house is cleared, you will be able to use that location as your safe haven and even sleep to pass on time, whether you want to skip the night or day time, and you can also stash weapons to free items space when venturing.
As I’ve just briefly mentioned, humans are also present in Dying Light. While they might not be as frequent as the undead, they are arguably even more deadly. Most of which will be armed with melee weapons and firearms, and they will be in packs. I tend to avoid a fight with human gangs, unless I have a firearm at hand. Because if you jump in head first and not adequately armed, you will die pretty quick. In most cases you will come across human gangs when trying to acquire a drop-ship crate for valuable items. If you’re lucky, you might even beat the NPC human to the crate, but it’s better to assume that you’ll be in for a fight when you get there.
One of the key elements to surviving in Dying Light is weapon and item crafting, to craft items you must be on the pursuit for ever valuable loot. You will find most loot hidden in backpacks, garbage bins, cupboard, dead bodies and so forth. But to aid you look for valuable items, if you hold down “A”, you will be able to scan your vicinity for nearby goodies, this can also be used to locate Volatiles when out in the night.
Depending on what loot items that you have on you, you will be able to craft items from exploding ninja stars, Molotov’s, firecrackers, lock-picks, medi-packs and much more. You will be able to craft many of the items from the get-go and as you progress into the story. However some of the specialist weapons (and the ones that are generally more fun), you will have to acquire the necessary blueprint to build your toys. Thankfully you can craft all items on the spot, so there’s no need to search for a workbench. But word of warning, don’t attempt to craft items when you’re too exposed, because that would be just asking for a quick death.
All in all, Dying Light has a rich and fulfilling world and movement soon becomes natural somewhat when you get use to its controls. However, having the jump/climb button allocated to the RB (R1 on PS4) on Xbox One, it can cause some moments of confusion, particularly during some intense chases. The reason I say this, is because with many games, especially First Person games, my natural instinct is to press the “A” button to jump and from what I can see, there’s no way to customise the control layout in the options. This of course is my own individual issue, as the next gamer may favour the control layout this way.
Another gripe that I have is with the parkour, while it works fantastically 99% of the time, Crane is a parkour expert, so it seems very odd that unless he’s climbing down a ladder, Crane cannot climb down objects or buildings freely. This becomes even more of a problem when attempting to descend the heights of a communication tower for example, where in most cases you have to rely on pure luck when it comes to dropping your way down to the bottom of the tower. Speaking of heights and towers, when you climb to the top of a tower, you get that churning feeling in your stomach as you look down at the daunting drop, which is great how Techland have managed to achieve that feeling. But it totally baffles me as to why he does not have the ability to climb down and even though this is unlikely, I hope that Techland patch the ability into the game at some point. There is still a more safe (ish) way to quickly descend from heights, and that is being on the lookout for garbage skips or garbage bags below, because when you take a leap of faith, they will help soften your landing. Later in the game, you can also unlock the ability to roll upon landing, which is very handy indeed.
When I had played and previewed Dying Light at EGX 2014, I had some high hopes for the game, yet I came back feeling very underwhelmed. A part of that could be the fact that at the time, I could not get use to the controls, as they felt very unresponsive. Secondly, the visuals looked incredibly grainy, dull and the framerate seemed too had suffered quite a lot. The visuals seemed that bad, that despite me playing the demo using an Xbox One controller, I came away thinking I had played an Xbox 360 build (which following EGX, the PS3 and Xbox 360 version were coincidently cancelled). Thankfully since EGX, to my absolute welcomed surprised, the final release build of Dying Light looks absolutely gorgeous at times, a far contrast from what I had previously played.
Often when a game gets cancelled for “extra polish” and its finally released, some games still prove to be a disappointment and you ask yourself “just what have the developers been doing with that extra time?”, yet it’s very clear that the developers at Techland have spent a lot of time giving Dying Light some extra love and attention, especially in the visuals department. During the day, the fictional city of Harran is bright and wonderfully crafted, in its rundown zombie post-apocalyptic kind of way. This is proven even more so when scaling the heights of various buildings and structures, to admire the draw-distance at hand. Close up inspections of each zombie also look grotesquely awesome. While it’s also very difficult to see the entirety of its visual splendour during the night, the pitch black Harran is a terrifying and intimidating place, even without what lurks among the shadows.
While Dead Island had a certain loveable charm, despite its many flaws; one of the very few factors that I could not fault it for, was with its soundtrack (apart from that annoying Voodoo Army tune). It had a certain tone that only fans of classic 1980’s/90’s zombie flick movies would appreciate. So when I played Dying Light, during the gameplay I found that it too had that same instantly recognisable signature sound. I later found out that the Techland developers also brought over Dead Island composer Pawel Błaszczak, which explained a lot and it is a move that I most certainly welcome.
Though despite Rodger Craig Smith being cast as the lead voice actor, I wouldn’t expect Dying Light to win any awards in the storytelling department. That’s not because the story isn’t good, it’s decent, it’s just quite minimal and basic. Which probably actually aids Dying Light, because with so much going on within its world in terms of activities, a deep and meaningful plot would have possibly not been the best route to go down. This is something that Dead Island also lacked, only with the added fetch quest overkill. Whereas in Dying Light, while it does have its own fetch quests, many of the missions are quite varied and the side-missions help to keep you immersed within its world.
The developers at Techland say that you can easily get 50 hours of gameplay during your playthrough of Dying Lights campaign and while that may differ from player to player, from my own experience that certainly seems to be the case. Main missions aside, there are heaps of side-missions to take on, which play a key role in levelling up Crane’s skills and aiding the story. You will also find various timed challenges that may see you take down a certain number of zombies within a time limit or using a specific weapon. These missions are a lot of fun, if you want a little distraction from the norm.
Then there’s of course the multiplayer, which is really where the fun is to be had. While the game is immense fun playing on your own, it can’t beat taking on the army of the undead with a good friend. This can be even more fun, for that friend joining your game, that may have a higher level character then you. I say this because even if that player is further progressed into their game then you are, they can jump into your game all supped up, ready and able to rip shit up with their high level character. It’s also a nice little bonus that players can share weapons with one another and then keep them in our singleplayer campaign. There is also so much more in regards to Dying Lights added extras that I could take about, I could go on forever, including the Be the Zombie mode, that would see you infiltrate another players game as the Night Hunter. So in a nutshell, Dying Light is crammed full of activities and hidden secrets, giving it a lot of depth with its replay value and best of all, it doesn’t feel stretched out for the sake of longevity, nor does it over stay its welcome.
Sometimes when you have very little hope for a game (I know that sounds bad), it cushions the blow for when something is a disappointment. So as I’ve already touched upon, following my EGX experience of Dying Light, my expectations were practically zilch. Dying Light’s controls may take a little getting used to, but once you get into the flow of the gameplay and Crane begins to level up to a good level, Dying Light starts to becomes a lot of fun and isn’t that what gaming should all be about? I will be totally honest; I completely underestimated Dying Light and for good reason. It may not be a perfect game (but what is?), yet you can’t help but play it with a smile on your face. It’s one of those games that when you’re away from it, you just want to play it.
Unlike Dead Island, which was quite one dimensional, Dying Light is more than just a zombie post- apocalyptic parkour blast of fun, it’s also a downright terrifying game at times. While it may differ for each gamer, I cannot think of one moment in any of the two Dead Island games where I felt genuinely scared. Whereas Dying Light at almost a flick of a switch can wipe that gleaming sunny smile off you face, to frantic panic and fear. Usually with a horror game, it’s purely about the horror, yet Dying Light blends over the top fun and terror with considerable ease.
If you really wanted to love the Dead Island, but couldn’t see past its many bugs and lack of horror, then I couldn’t recommend Dying Light enough. It’s bright and beautiful, has a meaningful levelling up system, worthy missions, moments of terror, laughter and on top of that, it’s great to play with friends. At the end of the day, what more could you want from the modern day videogame? So if you dare give Dying Light a chance, all I can say is “Good Night, Good Luck” and enjoy.