Normally we only have one reviewer assigned to each title, but Dying Light presented an interesting opportunity. With two review codes and two reviewers – one who likes zombie themed TV shows and games and another indifferent to them – you get two unique viewpoints on Dying Light.
Story/Gameplay Mechanics
Dying Light is Techland’s latest foray into the Zombie genre, after the release of Dead Island (2011) and Dead Island Riptide (2013). This is their first entry making use of next gen hardware, but has the transition been kind to them?
You’re put into the shoes of Kyle Crane, an agent working for the GRE, with the goal of recovering a confidential file that the agency desperately needs for reasons unbeknownst to you. Your handler sets you loose in the environment to make nice with the locals as you try and discern who stole the file. It’s unimaginative, but the story is well paced and introduces new elements pretty frequently. It’s interesting to note that Techland gained a fair bit of hype for Dead Island with its emotionally heavy trailer for Dead Island, and while Dying Light doesn't necessarily strum those chords the same way, it’s still an enjoyable romp overall, with the side quests being arguably more of a highlight than the main story.
The combat and crafting is pretty similar to that found in Dead Island as well. You make use of various materials to upgrade the implements you find, that vary in color from the average greens to the legendary oranges. Weapons each come with a repair counter, as well, and as you repair your items, this number decreases until it’s ultimately time to part ways with that trusty zombie-slaying apparatus you came to know and love. It helps to keep the combat varied as you look for new ways to help fend off the hordes of undead.
To better Kyle's chances of survival, he's constantly improving himself. Levelling abilities are handled with three different trees.
You have the Survivor skillset, which is boosted by advancing the story and completing main/secondary quests. Agility is gained from navigating the landscape and climbing, and Power is acquired from laying waste to the undead. Each tree has a nice bit of variety to it, unlocking some very useful skills like the ability to execute powerful charged attacks, hurling your weapon at an enemy for an impromptu ranged attack, or even the ability to perform finishing moves to save your weapon durability.
The zombies in Dying Light follow the now popular design of "lethargic by day, pissed off by night," and the zombies vary in design pretty nicely from the get go. There are generic civilians, police officers wielding batons, and beefy construction workers that even lob their tools at you if you climb out of reach. The special zombies add another layer to the combat as they often require different approaches. There are hazmat zombies that explode if you give them a solid blow to the gas tank, allowing them to spiral off into the distance before blowing up. There are also enemies that are just freshly infected, and are quite nimble. They’re more akin to the "28 Days Later" style of "rage-zombie," which are incredibly aggressive and are able to climb after you with startling speed. There are also the aptly named Goons, wielding rebar clubs, as well as the revoltingly designed Toads, who spit up poisonous gunk from a distance. The presence of these enemies encourages you to change up your approach, and this is where Dying Light really beings to shine.
What I Loved (Scott)
What a pleasant way to kick off the New Year! Dying Light clearly borrows ideas from games like Mirror’s Edge and Far Cry, but these are implemented in such a way that it doesn't really detract from the gameplay. It works for the sake of what it needs to do, regardless of the lack of imagination. The combat has a satisfyingly heavy feel to it, and there is a lot to see and do in the city of Harran.One of the key goals was to encourage creative combat, and Dying Light really delivered on this aspect. As you dart from roof to roof, you make use of various hazards around the map like chemical spills, spiked walls, and even electrified puddles to get rid of the zombies that lazily pursue you. You can craft firecrackers to lure them to these parts as well, and a number of the combat skills you gain allow you to help encourage the zombies into these traps, should they be less inclined. You can drop kick, tackle, vault, and even make use of their guts in a nod to The Walking Dead. The AI of the zombies is pretty well crafted, and they behave like you'd imagine. I encountered numerous times where a zombie just walked off a roof or into a spike trap, paying no real heed to its environment.
The formula gets turned on its head come night time.
Night time in Dying Light is terrifying. The special enemies in the day all disappear, and are replaced by more of the aggressive zombies known as Volatiles, as well as more grotesque Night Hunters, who actively roam and seek out Kyle. You can choose to sleep the night away in one of the numerous safe houses, and the game doesn't really punish you for it. You can also opt to follow the high risk/high reward incentive of double the experience points, but the trade-off is that you have to get out there and explore, facing the intimidating Night Hunters. These enemies sport the unpleasant ability of being able to convert the passive zombies into “Volatiles," agile zombies who can keep up with you for the most part.
A single pursuer can quickly turn into a howling horde of pissed off undead. It keeps the gameplay at Night exciting, and during my panicked retreats and careful sneaking throughout the city, I found myself genuinely enjoying the experience.
What I Loved (Sidd)
While Dying Light borrows heavily from other titles, the City of Harran is pretty lively and offers plenty to do. From side quests to main story missions to coming across random encounters, I never felt bored in the City. In fact the game is so stunning at times, I just loved getting to a high spot in the City to take in the view.
Dying Light could have lived or died based solely on how the parkour system was implemented and thankfully the system is almost perfect. At first it seemed like mapping the jump and climb button to R1 button was a strange choice, but by the end of the game it seemed like a genius decision, especially when you get the grappling hook.
The cool thing about combat in both night and day is that the game frequently dangles the chance to kill groups of zombies by either shooting them or shooting an explosive barrel, but it comes with a huge trade-off. Loud noises tend to attract the more aggressive zombies who can run after you, climb up buildings and mutate later on in the game to appear more human. It's decisions like this that make you approach each encounter differently, especially when it comes to dealing with random human thugs.
Like Scott stated, night time zombies are terrifying. I sometimes chose to sleep through the night in order to avoid the Volatiles. But soon enough I realized that carrying out missions and assignments at night rewarded me with more experience points and helped me gain experience faster.
I often preferred the stealthy route when coming upon a group of zombies. Even with guns, you won’t stand much of a chance against a group of pissed off Volatiles at night. One of my favourite parts of playing at night was being able to press the triangle button which slows down time and lets you view who's chasing you. Especially towards the later parts of the game this can become quite frightening as it’s not uncommon for several Volatiles to be in hot pursuit.
While the single player campaign is extremely enjoyable, it’s always merrier with more people. Dying Light features co-op for up to four people. But instead of getting easier, the game seems to get harder the more people you are playing with in co-op. Dying Light is one of the best co-op games I have played in a long time.
What I Disliked (Scott)
Sadly, the game isn't flawless. While the gameplay itself is quite good, it's not unique. Dying Light borrows heavily on elements from other games. The lock picking immediately feels like Fallout 3 or its expansion New Vegas, and the various towers you can scale gave me a deja-vu feeling to when I’d been exploring the islands of Far Cry 3. Dying Light ultimately feels like an amalgamation of ideas from past successful games, doing little to really stand out aside from its setting, but it executes this well, making the overall product quite enjoyable but there's one other aspect that left a sour taste in my mouth. A quicktime event (QTE) Boss Battle.
This trend overstayed its welcome from the first instance of it being used. Resident Evil 4 liberally made use of these, but in a way that at least didn't detract from the experience. This applies to God of War as well, usually being reserved for the gory finish of a boss battle, or for a turning point with a mini-boss. Recently however, games like Space Marine, Shadow of Mordor, and now Dying Light have all opted to have the final boss play out in a QTE battle entirely, which is frustrating. It defeats the purpose of a final boss having that “final” feeling to it. I don’t want to be pushing buttons in sequence; I want to put all the skills I learned over the course of the game to use in defeating The Big Bad of the game.
What I Disliked (Sidd)
I found Dying Light to be horribly frustrating at certain points in the game, especially the second half. While the jumping and climbing work well, there were too many times where I would use a grappling hook to latch onto a roof of a building and then not be able to climb up to the roof top. Not being able to climb onto the roof results in immediate death. (It's not the fall, it's the sudden stop at the end.) It doesn't help that the game penalizes you by taking away survivor points most times when you die.
I wasn't a fan of the lock picking either. I felt like the amount of time spent lock picking didn't earn a satisfying reward. Every time I unlocked a medium or hard box I was expecting to see a shotgun or assault rifle only to be disappointed by what lay inside the box. How many aerosol cans or cigarettes does a guy need?
I agree with Scott about the final boss battle. The lead up to the boss battle felt so drawn out that I was expecting some epic conclusion only to be disappointed by a QTE.
In theory, the Be a Zombie (Dying Lights only competitive mode where one player assumes the role of night zombie to stalk the humans set out to destroy "nests" on the map) mode sounds like a good idea, but too often I would run into matches where people who would quit or disconnect once I entered a game. I was also guilty of doing the same when I was playing my campaign. It’s hard to be focused on finishing an objective only to be interrupted by people wanting to join your campaign. This mode can also feel a little unbalanced if you’re a zombie and only playing against one human player.
Verdict (Scott)
I enjoy Dying Light immensely, but between the lack of originality and the QTE final boss, I sadly cant’ give it as high praise as I’d like to. It’s still an excellent game and I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you were to pick it up, but these two issues do negatively affect my view of the game.
Verdict (Sidd)
I really enjoyed Dying Light. It’s the best game I’ve played in quite a while, even if certain elements feel borrowed from other titles. While it can be frustrating at times, this is a game that definitely won’t disappoint you if you’re a fan of zombie titles or action adventure games.
- Sidd Masand & Scott Sullivan
