Dying Light feels like an evolution of Dead Island, a franchise that thrust players into a zombie apocalypse on a fictional tropical island and put an emphasis on melee combat as opposed to just shooting the undead with conventional fire-arms like most games did at that time. After two games in the Dead Island franchise, the core team went on to create a brand new IP that took place in another zombie apocalypse.
This is how Dying Light was born, and with this new franchise, developer Techland moved out from the tropics to a dense urban setting. The melee combat from Dead Island was overhauled to create an even more intense and visceral experience, but an equal amount of importance was given to the game’s fluid traversal system. With Dying Light 2, a lot of these mechanics have been upgraded to provide an even better experience than its predecessor. Unfortunately, the game also suffers from a ton of bugs, issues and glitches, making it hard to recommend in its current condition.
Dying Light 2 takes place 22 years after the events of the first game. You play as Aiden Caldwell, a completely different character who’s looking for his sister amidst the zombie apocalypse. Dying Light 2 transports players to Villedor, the final bastion for humanity as the zombie plague has now taken over the entire world. Based on numerous Eastern European cities, Villedor is the backdrop for Dying Light 2, and this is where you’ll be spending nearly all of your time in this game.
Gameplay in Dying Light 2 is still largely split up into two pillars – traversal and combat. Traversal in Dying Light 2 is undoubtedly the star of the show and performs even better than the first game. Aiden can effortlessly scale building, jump across roofs, run across walls and swing all over the place. Traversal options in Dying Light 2 offer even more ways to explore the city. The more you move, the more traversal points you accrue and the flashier moves you can pull off.
Combat, on the other hand, is a mixed bag because while it does offer more options than the first game, whacking zombies just doesn’t feel as satisfying, thanks to the game’s gimped physics. And even then, there’s no real strategy to zombie combat. You keep spamming attacks till they die, and the only thing you have to be careful about is that you don’t get overwhelmed by their numbers. Combat with human enemies is more challenging and fun as you can now block and parry attacks and even vault over stunned foes to drop kick their friends.
But while combat and traversal in Dying Light 2 are largely fun and the city is a blast to explore, the game is pulled down by bugs and glitches that completely take you out of the experience. Dying Light 2 offers four-player co-op, but your partner’s animations in co-op look so janky that you’re better off playing the game by yourself. During our playthrough, we also faced issues triggering quests, hard crashes, and bugs with NPCs. This game definitely needed some more time in the oven.
Dying Light 2 has the bones of a solid game. Exploring the city is a lot of fun thanks to fluid parkour mechanics, and after a while, the combat also starts feeling great, especially when you gain the ability to just drop kick enemies off roofs. Sadly, the game’s technical issues do stick out like a sore thumb, which is why we recommend waiting till the game is patched significantly.
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