Now Playing: Dying Light

Dying Light is a first person zombie survival (sort of) game set in the fictional city of Harran. Harran is a city under quarantine after the outbreak of a zombie virus. You play as Kyle Crane, a not very interesting good guy sent into the quarantine zone to track down a not very interesting bad guy who has stolen a secret file or something.

The city is divided into two maps, the latter of which you’ll unlock through story progression. Aside from that, you’re free to explore the world as you please, with only a handful of areas on each map inaccessible for story based objectives. You have the expected core quests which take you across each of the two maps as you try to survive and complete your mission. In addition to this you have a variety of side content and quests.

The core story quests do a good job of pushing you to every area of the city, both at day and night. These are fairly enjoyable and offer a decent level of variety, at least during the first half of the game. Unfortunately, the second half sees the story quests frequently devolve into dull shoot-outs in rooms full of bad guys with dumb AI.

The story is okay, I guess. It’s just sort of there, pushing you along, but you never really care too much. The main villain is suitably…villainous, I suppose, but not very interesting. And neither, really, is Crane. It’s all a little bland and far too serious. It’s really in the side content that Dying Light shines in terms of story and character.

 

The side content ranges from multi-stage, elaborate missions, to simple ‘go collect 10 herbs’. Yes. Because video game. There’s also a lot of challenges to complete based around movement or combat. I was worried the side content would be a lot of nothing. A long list of fetch quests that only serve to pad the game rather than enhance and enrich the experience. But that’s really not the case. Even the ‘collection’ quests can be quite fun, as you try to track down specific items, such as raiding pharmacies for medical supplies.

The side content is also where the characters come to life. The main story is a little too serious, but there’s a lot of humour and quirky characters to be found in the side stuff. I recall one escort quest as I guided a salesman through the city to deliver his product, all the while yelling NO REFUNDS! as he smashed zombies in the face.

A lot of the side content has this tongue in cheek style to it. Even Crane comes to life as he sarcastically agrees to help people with all manner of nonsense. It gives the game a wonderful sense of fun, which is certainly reflected in its gameplay. It’s why the main story stuff doesn’t quite work because tonally, it feels at odds with the rest of the game.

Dying Light has a Mirror’s Edge style parkour system for movement, which is also tied into combat. It’s not quite a ‘realistic’ system – I’m pretty sure falling 100ft into a pile of trash bags isn’t something you’d just walk away from. But the system makes traversing Harran a lot of fun as you leap and climb, and the city is designed in such a way that allows you to maintain your momentum.

This movement gets even more fun when you unlock the grappling hook, and Dying Light suddenly transforms into the best first person Spider-Man game you’ll probably ever play. The grappling hook, mechanically, makes no sense in the way that it works, but it transforms your movement throughout the city in a way that’s so damn fun you don’t want to go back. It also, it should be noted, make movement throughout the city far too easy, but we’ll return to the matter of difficulty later.

The movement system also has a combat element. As you progress through the game, killing zombies and completing quests, you’ll level up and earn points to purchase new skills revolving around survival, movement and combat. You have passive skills such as increased health or resistance to damage, but also new abilities like the aforementioned grappling hook or shoulder charge.

You can add a tackle to your slide ability, or gain the ability to boost yourself off a zombie and into the air. There’s also a brilliant running drop kick, which you can use to send a zombie flying into a group, knocking them down like skittles. All these abilities make traversing the world a lot of fun, so even when the quests have you running between A & B you’ll have plenty of ways to amuse yourself en route.

 

In addition to simply kicking enemies about, you also have a variety of weapons. Guns are in the game, but ammo is kept somewhat limited in terms of what you can carry. And it’s always worth carrying a rifle to deal with the rather dull ‘shooty’ bits. Against zombies, however, you’ll stick with melee weapons ranging from a plank with a nail, to a baseball bat, to an ornamental sword.

Combat has a wonderful sense of weight and impact. There’s also a decent dismemberment system as you chop zombies in half, or cut off their arms or head. Fighting zombies has never felt quite so satisfying – but also dangerous, at least during the early stages of the game. Zombies walk just fast enough to swamp you if you get stuck in a crowd, and they genuinely feel like a threat.

You also have ‘special’ zombie types to contend with. There are fast zombies, which can pursue you across the rooftops, but also large, lumbering brutes. These are probably the most irritating to fight as their hit detection is so messy. Several times I was ‘hit’ and knocked down by these guys even though I was several feet away, or had completely side stepped their attack. There’s also the exploding zombies which annoyingly lurk right behind doorways and kill you instantly.

I’ve never really been a fan of ‘special’ zombie types like this. I didn’t like them in Zombi and I don’t particularly care for them here. Even the ‘volatiles’, which only emerge at night, proved to be more irritating than scary. Throughout the world you’ll find traps you can activate to lure or kill zombies, and you can also carry and craft distractions which you’ll find useful if you need to move a large group away from an objective.

There’s a whole system of crafting in the game but it’s not something you’ll really use often, especially the weapon crafting. The idea is that you can modify existing weapons to carry particular effects such as burning or toxic, but I honestly never really bothered with it. If it was modifying weapons to say, add spikes to a bat or a silencer to a pistol, I’d have been more interested. As it is, the weapon upgrade and modification system just feels a little worthless, especially considering how quickly you break or discard your weapons.

Dying Light has a day/night cycle. The night is when the volatiles emerge. I think it’s meant to encourage a more ‘stealth’ based approach, but it’s often easier to just leg it through any trouble. There are only a handful of missions that require you to venture out at night anyway, which I’m kind of glad for. As I mentioned, I found the volatiles more irritating than scary.

Difficulty is certainly an issue as you progress. The game can be quite punishing early on, as your weapons are weak and won’t have yet unlocked many of your skills. This is where Dying Light really feels more survival focused. You have to stay on the move, not make too much noise, and tackle zombies with care. But as you progress, the game becomes far too easy, as you gain access to weapons and abilities that make you practically unstoppable.

 

It’s certainly fun, but the game loses that early sense of panic as you find yourself surrounded by a horde, or have to figure out how to lure a large group of zombies away. The early game of Dying Light really does capture that desperate struggle for survival quite nicely. Zombies are tough to fight more than one at a time, and night has a genuine sense of menace about it. It’s a shame that you lose this feeling as the game progresses, even if it becomes far more fun to play.

It’s a strange thing, I guess. I was having less fun at the beginning with my limited skills and weak weapons, but I was also far more engaged by every moment because there was a genuine sense of danger. Later, when I was upgraded and tooled up, I had far more fun, but there was no more sense of risk. The game does turn into something of a carnival sandbox as you slay zombies by the dozen in new and creative ways.

I would have liked more of the survival element to shine throughout the entire experience, particularly with The Tower – your main safe house. I’d have liked an almost State of Decay type system to recruit new survivors, unlock new facilities, or gather resources. As it is, The Tower is something you visit on occasion for story reasons or to sell stuff. It’s far too static an environment to make you care about the people living there. Even undertaking quests to support the The Tower doesn’t feel like it results in any tangible benefits or effects.

Overall, Dying Light is one of the best zombie themed games you can play. Simply in terms of its gameplay, it’s great. Where it lacks is with its largely bland characters and central story. You’ll have a lot of fun in the world, but you won’t ever really care about why you’re there.

I’m also a little disappointed by the lack of survival elements, as the game becomes far too easy as you progress and you no longer feel any sense of danger. It’s also a shame so many of the latter missions just turn the game into a mediocre FPS. Also, the final couple of missions are pretty lacklustre, and the game ends with an extremely lame QTE boss fight. Because we all love those. That said, if you like your zombie games, Dying Light is certainly worth checking out, if just for the sandbox gameplay alone.

7/10