Ever wonder what Dead Island would be like if you swapped the tropical island environment for an expansive, urban cityscape teeming with zombies, street gangs and Mirror’s Edge-style gameplay? Me neither. But this didn’t stop developer Techland from developing Dying Light, a survival horror action game based on Dead Island’s core game mechanics. The final product is a heart-pounding, chilling adventure through a post-apocalyptic city with undead on just about every street corner.
The game sees you in the role of Kyle Crane, an operative hired by the GRE to infiltrate the city of Harran to retrieve a sensitive file that was stolen by Kadir Suleman. Crane is airdropped into the city where an unknown virus has turned its inhabitants into rabid, flesh-eating zombies. Shortly after arriving, Crane is ambushed by a gang of Bandits and eventually bitten and infected by a zombie. Before long, Jade Aldemir rescues Crane and returns him to a survivor sanctuary called ‘The Tower’.
From there, Crane learns of the survivors’ struggle to obtain a medicine called Antizin, which helps to subdue the effects of the virus. With the help of Jade and the other survivors, Crane works to retrieve the missing Antizin from a ruthless warlord named Rais, while also tracking down the sensitive file stolen from the GRE. But before you can embark on your hellish journey, you are instructed to train with Rahim Aldemir, Jade’s brother. While the basic mechanics remain the same, including the controls (i.e. R3 to run, R2 to attack, etc.), the ability to use your environment to escape adds a unique twist to the gameplay.
For starters, the game encourages the player to stay off the streets; it even stresses the importance of it during the tutorial. And despite sharing a lot of similarities with Dead Island, this gameplay feature starts to blur the line between Dying Light and Dead island. For example: during the training segment, you must follow Rahim through a makeshift obstacle course comprised of scaffolding, long drops and platform jumps that require a running start. As you climb up the obstacle course, you are shown how to use the on-screen cursor to align your hand with adjacent ledges to successfully transition your jumps.
But despite these changes, some of Dying Light’s gameplay still parallels Dead Island – when you’re not completing story-based missions, you’re scavenging the environment for food, parts to craft new weapons, and saving random survivors caught in life and death situations. As a living, breathing city (so to speak), events happen constantly even when you’re not around to interact with them. For example – GRE supply drops happen at random intervals. Since these drops are not important to the main story, the decision to find them is left up to the player. Saving a survivor also functions in the same way. Completing these ‘side’ events will grant additional money and bonus XP for leveling. Ignoring these side missions will invoke changes in the environment; these changes are minimal at best. Refusing to help a survivor leads to their death, and ignoring a supply drop makes it vulnerable to bandits.
Combat is the same as Dead Island, but gone are the floaty controls and the awkward delay of some heavy weapons that frustrated gamers. These tweaks haven’t been perfected (i.e. anything larger than a pipe still has a short delay when you perform heavy attacks), but heavier, slower weapons are now more manageable during combat. A modified baseball bat is slower and heavier than a pipe, but it can incapacitate multiple zombies at once. But like Dead Island, there are too many zombies occupying the streets to take them all on. Highways, bridges and streets are infested with the undead, and the slightest noise can attract their attention. But on the flip side, noise can be used to clear an area or a location related to a mission.
It’s important to change your survival tactics when exploring the city at night. When the sun sets, Night Hunters join the endless, shambling crowds of flesh-eaters as the city’s apex predator. And unlike their brain-dead brethren, Night Stalkers can target a player from almost a block away due to their heightened senses. These creatures can be easily defeated when they’re by themselves, but not when they are in large groups. You’re only left with two options when cornered by more than one of these creatures — run for your life or scare them off with a UV powered light. The effect is only temporary, so you’re left with mere seconds to find cover before they start looking for you again.
Dying Light contains more scares than your average survival horror game, but not always for the right reasons. The game has a tendency of materializing zombies out of thin air even though you had checked your back moments before. And nothing can describe the emotions you feel the first time this happens either. I nearly dropped my DualShock 4 controller in shock because I wasn’t expecting anything to happen. It’s difficult to tell if this is a reoccurring glitch or the developer dropping in deliberate scares to keep the player on their toes. People with weak hearts have been warned.
The crafting system is robust in that it doesn’t restrict the player to a ‘crafting table’ (think Dead Island) to repair and/or modify weapons. Crafting material can be found all across the city – and can range from shoelaces to bottles of rubbing alcohol – and all of it can be crafted while you’re on the go in the city. Broken weapons can be mended with spare metal parts such as nails, saw blades and broken electronic parts. Every weapon requires a small laundry list of parts to be repaired, and those parts are displayed in separate windows next to the weapon currently in use. Repairing a weapon is as simple as pressing the Triangle button.
Weapon mods require blueprints, which can be found throughout the city. Hammers and wrenches, for example, can be modded into crude welders, capable of fracturing bones and charring flesh. Knives and Picks can be laced with aerosol to poison living enemies (i.e. bandits), while also causing a deep, bleeding effect. Electrocution is also among the many blueprint mods available, and it’s actually quite entertaining to see it in action. Zombies will shake violently from convulsions as electricity courses through their rotting, disfigured bodies. Moreover, zombies that are set on fire will stumble around mindlessly, only to cause adjacent flesh-eaters to burn as well. There’s an almost morbid satisfaction to dealing out such punishment; it has to be experienced to be fully appreciated.
Dying Light’s co-op multiplayer feature comes in handy when a mission is too difficult to complete solo. When you’re close to a mission zone, the game will notify you of any co-op games currently in progress. You can find these games by pressing Start and selecting the Matchmaking menu. Here you can choose ‘Quick Match’ (which doesn’t always yield the best results) or ‘Find a Game’.
Any progress made during the co-op game is carried over to the single-player experience, making it much easier to progress through the story. Multiplayer’s biggest innovation is the ability to play as a Night Stalker during a co-op season. As a Night Stalker, you can stalk players and kill them to level up. The interaction is limited, though, and you can only participate if gamers have the feature enabled while hosting a game. It’s fun for a short time, but you don’t actually participate in the story; you’re just there as an obstacle for other players to overcome.
Dying Light is one of those games you can’t put down once you start playing. It may not be perfect, and some of the same issues that plagued Dead Island are still present, but the positives tend to outweigh the negatives in this case. Whether you have played Dead Island or enjoy a good survival horror game, Dying Light is guaranteed to satisfy gamers of all skill levels. Just remember that when the sun sets, the real fun begins. And if you’re smart, you won’t travel light.
Mike Pittaro
Platform: Playstation 4
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
ESRB: M (Mature)
Price: $59.99
Dying Light’s Official Website: http://dyinglightgame.com/
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |  |
| Gorgeous environments and character models. | |
| Sound | |
| Creepy zombie moans and blood-curdling howls make your skin crawl. | |
| Gameplay | |
| Intense combat that is complimented by a diverse survival system. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Dying Light by Techland is a challenging, but addictive romp through a post-apocalyptic city . | |
