Dying Light Review

Almost anyone who’s even looked at a video game in the last 15 years could name a zombie-based game off the top of their head. The late 2000s and almost the entire of the 2010s were a resurgence period for the zombie genre, with Call of Duty acting as frontrunners in the genre after the surprise hit of the ‘Nacht der Untoten’ level in World at War, which only started out as a bonus level for after you’d completed the main campaign, but then went on to spawn several DLC maps, as well as being a regular game mode in future instalments of the franchise. With this, the decade after was nothing but zombies. Every big publisher probably has at least a few zombie games under its belt. Personally, thinking back to Call of Duty zombies gives me major anxiety as I was terrified of it but all of my friends would play it after school and I’d reluctantly join and pretend I was having fun. But I digress.

So, with the zombie genre being immensely popular and every other game that was released at the time having something to do with zombies, it was inescapable but it was a genre that just never did much for me (maybe as trauma from the aforementioned Call of Duty zombies). However, recently, I had the weirdest inkling to play Dying Light. I’d never seen gameplay of it before but I’d heard that it was a zombie game with parkour and had also heard comparisons to Mirror’s Edge, which I thought was a cool idea, so I decided to buy it while on sale, and with the sequel coming out in the next few weeks, I thought I’d share some thoughts about it.

The story is very skeletal and that’s completely fine. You play as Kyle Crane, an undercover operative who is sent into the city of Harran, which has been devastated by a zombie apocalypse. Crane is quickly adopted by a group of survivors after he’s bitten by a zombie. However, getting bitten isn’t necessarily a death sentence as a drug known as Antizin can be injected which acts as a relief for symptoms of “turning”. Crane’s objective is to recover an important file from Rais, a psychotic leader of an opposing faction of survivors. Throughout the story, Crane must decide whether he listens to his superiors and continues with his assigned mission, or if he deviates and helps the survivors. The story is serviceable for the most part. However, the plot line of Crane getting bitten is completely useless and serves no purpose to the story. It’s only used every now and again during scripted story events when Crane experiences “seizures” that makes his movements sluggish and it also depletes his stamina entirely. Outside of the brief moments of haziness, there really is no point in him being infected.

The supporting cast of characters are borderline cardboard cut-outs. They have next to no personality. The game surprisingly kills most of the “main” characters off, but due to how little screen time they actually get, it’s hard to feel sad when you don’t really know them. Jade was the most standout character but I always found it weird when Crane would get overly emotional when it came to Jade despite only having a handful of encounters with her. Like, she becomes his main motivation for wanting to kill the main villain. Speaking of that, Rais is the main villain and he’s so comically evil. He’s portrayed as a psychopathic dictatorial type who kills his own men without batting an eyelash but he loves to let you live on several occasions where it would have been very easy to kill you. He has no levels deeper than he’s evil for the sake of needing a villain in the game. Saying all that, the characters and story are fine for what the game is. I don’t think profundity was the developer’s intentions so it gets a pass on that.

Both of my biggest praises and criticisms lie in the gameplay and I hope that the sequel smooths out some of the glaring issues. It’s great because it’s a unique take on the zombie genre where you have to make use of the world around you to escape, or to get a better view of your surroundings. It’s also just plain fun to hop across rooftops and zip from building to building when you obtain the grappling hook. It’s good that you can climb most places, meaning you can scale almost any building you see. However, there are too many times where it just doesn’t work. Sometimes you look at the ledge exactly how the game instructs you and it just doesn’t register so you fall, often times to your death or into a horde. The parkour is fun when you’ve built up good momentum but these random slips in hitbox recognition just screech the game to a halt as you have to then slowly clamber up a building. It’s also infuriating when you’re frantically trying to escape a group of zombies and you’re jumping at a ledge and the game just isn’t having any of it. While the grappling hook is a lot of fun, I also found that there were a lot of times where after I’d grappled, the game wouldn’t let me continue to climb after, meaning I would just slide down the building and to my death. Luckily, the game has frequent checkpoints so at least there isn’t really a trek back to where you were.

My biggest issues with the gameplay are with the combat and the actual zombies themselves. I hate the combat in this game. The weapons are horribly underpowered and they stay this way throughout the entire game. I think the point is that you’re not supposed to fight hordes of enemies like in other zombie games, but I would actively avoid ALL combat encounters because it was such a chore. The zombies are made of steel and I only managed to get through the combat as I played on co-op with a friend and had him drop me some weapons that were actually somewhat effective, because even by the game’s end, the weapon damage levels were miniscule. The zombies are also powerful, with even basic enemies being able to make short work of you. There are other types of zombies with different abilities that mirror those found in Left 4 Dead and they’re all bad and super unfun to play against. The game seems to discourage combat but will then put a crap ton of enemies in one space and expect you to complete an objective there. The basic enemies are equipped with a grab attack that prompts a button mashing event for the player to escape its grasp, but the zombies do this attack so often that it can seem like you’re being locked into it until you die. While I hate the combat, the gore is actually quite satisfying. Enemies can be sliced up in a myriad of different ways with limbs coming off, decapitations, the stomping of heads, among others.

A unique aspect this game had going for it is the inclusion of the day and night cycle, but during the night, enemies are tougher and more frequent, but any experience points gained are doubled, which I thought was a pretty neat concept. There are enemies unique to night time called Volatiles that the game encourages the player to hide from, but if you’re seen by them, they’ll chase you and swiftly kill you if they catch up. Luckily, the game doesn’t force you to play during the night and you can choose to wait until the morning while you’re in a safe area.

I played almost the entire game on co-op with a friend and I think it increased the fun tenfold. It provided plenty of laughs as we messed around but it was also a good aid when the combat became too overwhelming. I would highly recommend anyone who starts this to play it with a friend as it prevents the game from becoming too frustrating (which it definitely will if you experience any of the problems I did).

The graphics are passable. The game was released in 2015 so it would be unfair to comment on them now but I guess the graphics are about the standard of the time. There was never anything hideously bad on screen and everything ran as it should. There were no game breaking bugs that I experienced and any bugs or glitches were only in relation to the parkour. The soundtrack is okay. It’s a bit limited with the same tracks being used several times throughout the game, and the ambient music that plays throughout casual exploration seems to repeat a lot too, but it wasn’t really annoying. The voice acting wasn’t terrible but it was nobody’s winning any awards for their performances.

Overall, this game was fine. I definitely enjoyed it more because I played it with a friend but I think there’s still fun to be found when playing solo. Dying Light inches above the sea of zombie games with its inclusion of parkour and a more open world setting. While it doesn’t succeed at everything it tries, it’ll be interesting to see if the sequel can polish the gameplay faults that drag this game back from being something great.

Score: 6/10