Fans of the original Dying Light game - released seven years back - had been anxiously awaiting the next instalment in the series and, after a number of pushbacks, Dying Light 2: Stay Human finally hit shelves for all major platforms. Having set such a precedent with the debut title however, developers Techland had a high bar to reach with this release; was it one they managed to reach?
Immediately, gamers are confronted with a vast and beautiful, yet dangerous landscape. It doesn’t quite live up to some of the stunning environments we’ve recently been treated to in games such as Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part II, but it’s still one you’ll want to explore a healthy chunk of.
What Dying Light continues to do well with this new release, is implement the day and night cycle, which shuffles the way in which you should traverse and tackle the world and its enemies, depending on whether you’re under the sun, or the stars. In the day for example, the majority of zombies can be found within buildings hiding away from the light, whereas at night, they’ll roam the streets hungry for their next fleshy meal. This adds another layer of preparation ahead of missions where you’ll scout for supplies, collectibles and anything else you want to get your grimy little hands on.
Unfortunately, the inspiration to do exactly that isn’t quite as strong as I had hoped. Our protagonist Aiden Caldwell isn’t somebody I ever really cared to root for. Though his background was a semi-interesting one, there was never a moment in which I willed him to succeed or uncover the truth about what may or may not have happened to him and those he loved during his childhood years. He just served as a catalyst for the narrative to be told, rather than feeling like an essential part of it, which was a real shame.
Where he was at his best however, was during his frequent moments of parkour. It’s extremely enjoyable to jump around various buildings, wobble across small spaces and manage your stamina bar to ensure that you can get from one place to another without running short of breath and falling to the zombie-infested ground below. Though you at first aren’t given much stamina or many parkour skills to play with, progressing through the game opens up abilities that can be claimed via a skill tree, adding more meat to the bones of the overall experience.
Less fun is the combat system. It feels very hack-and-slash, especially in the game’s earliest moments, with a blocking function that sometimes felt as though it wasn’t actually working properly. Weapons start out as boring necessities, but there are some thrills to be found when you pick up blueprints and start modding them, adding electricity or fire to an otherwise blunt object, so that your kills can be a little more extravagant.
Many of the characters you’ll meet in your Dying Light 2 journey are forgettable, but a handful will leave you intrigued as to where their own personal stories will go. So, when you are given dialogue choices which will shape your relationship with those people, you feel as though your journey has been elevated.
Just as you feel as though you’re being immersed however, you’ll likely come across a bug that immediately pulls you out of that all-enveloping new reality, such as a floating zombie serving as a distraction. Moments like this also mean that the game never really feels quite as scary as the original, which is a shame, as the first did leave me jumping more often than I’d like to admit.
Fortunately, Techland knows their audience. So, if you liked the first Dying Light game, there’s more for you here. It’s an addictive offering, with a lot of side content to keep you busy if you’re not somebody who simply wants to blast through the main campaign. If you haven’t played the original though, perhaps give that a try first and wait until this one drops a little in price.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. A code was given to Female First in exchange for a fair and honest review. The game was reviewed on the MSI GF65 Thin 10UE gaming laptop with NVIDIA RTX and 3060 graphics card.