Dying Light

 PC
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2268 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,710 out of 2268
  2. Mixed: 365 out of 2268
  3. Negative: 193 out of 2268
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  1. J4MESOX4D
    Jan 27, 2015
    7
    Dying Light is an enjoyable game from Techland but despite a much more polished title than its Dead Island predecessors, this game still suffers from bad habits that plagued those games along with yet another shaky launch on PC regarding the technical aspect.

    Firstly; the game looks gorgeous, with a beautiful vast and colourful backdrop and fantastic attention to detail. The movement    Dying Light is an enjoyable game from Techland but despite a much more polished title than its Dead Island predecessors, this game still suffers from bad habits that plagued those games along with yet another shaky launch on PC regarding the technical aspect.

    Firstly; the game looks gorgeous, with a beautiful vast and colourful backdrop and fantastic attention to detail. The movement mechanics are easy to use and a joy to execute plus the crafting system is also well-implemented.

    Dying Light however lets itself down with some very mundane missions, forgettable characters and repetitive gameplay. Thankfully the parkour physics and various melee weapons keep the game interesting but the core of the product lacks any real depth. After a few hours of play; once you've seen that; you have essentially seen all that will be offered in the latter stages of the game. The campaign is a fairly weak narrative supported by a largely intolerable cast.

    Technically, the game is a calamitous launch for many. I should be able to run this comfortably as I have exceeded even the recommended settings but this is the only game which I own that suffers from significant frame rate drops and more irritatingly; cutscene stuttering/freezing. It seems to be hit and miss with other players of varying rigs, so be weary of how this could fare on your system before rushing to purchase.

    Overall; Dying Light is a decent game with a stunning setting and great mechanics. However, the story and characters along with the missions are very weak which drags the product down. Technically; the game is inconsistent and doesn't run to a good standard even on the highest-end setups which makes it hard to judge. It is certainly a massive improvement on Dead Island but Techland have not excelled in key areas which is disappointing. At £40; I find it hard to recommend at this pricepoint especially with the potential performance woes but at a cost lower down the line and with possible patches on the way; it's certainly a consideration in the future especially at a cheaper cost.    … Expand
  2. gloriouspotato
    Jan 23, 2016
    7
    Dying Light like every other zombie game, features the typical zombie game stuff. You've got the slow zombies, fast zombies, explosive zombies, poisonous zombies and big zombies that all go "guururgh" at you. In this respect, Dying Light does sometimes feel like 'just' another zombie game in a market already saturated with other zombie games. The storytelling is not the game's strongestDying Light like every other zombie game, features the typical zombie game stuff. You've got the slow zombies, fast zombies, explosive zombies, poisonous zombies and big zombies that all go "guururgh" at you. In this respect, Dying Light does sometimes feel like 'just' another zombie game in a market already saturated with other zombie games. The storytelling is not the game's strongest point. While there is some degree of character development, I didn't feel emotionally connected to these characters, and the writing often came off as corny or overly dramatic.

    Fortunately, the gameplay mechanics are quite solid. The parkour elements reminds me of Mirror's Edge, and while the moveset isn't quite as varied as in Mirror's Edge, it's a welcome addition to the game that feels fluid and responsive. Dying Light also features a few interesting side quests, though it also has its fair share of less engaging fetch quests. My other criticisms are directed towards the visual quality and performance of the game. Low-res textures are quite prevalent, and the game has a very high consumption of vram. On graphics cards with less than 4gb of vram, there is occasional texture pop-in and stuttering.

    Overall rating - 7.2/10    … Expand
  3. PPartisan
    May 17, 2015
    7
    Dying Light is an exciting game that is let down by several mundane, anachronistic RPG tropes. In the few areas where it succeeds however, it does extremely well.

    Two parts of Dying Light deserve special commendation - the zombies, and the environments. It's difficult to describe fictional monsters as "realistic", but Dying Light takes the best depictions of zombies from various sources    Dying Light is an exciting game that is let down by several mundane, anachronistic RPG tropes. In the few areas where it succeeds however, it does extremely well.

    Two parts of Dying Light deserve special commendation - the zombies, and the environments. It's difficult to describe fictional monsters as "realistic", but Dying Light takes the best depictions of zombies from various sources and blends them into a mix all fans of the genre are sure to love.

    The standard zombie is akin to those encountered on the Walking Dead: numerous, slow and easily manipulated on the one hand, but tough and eerily silent on the other. "Virals" are more similar to the "infected" of 28 Days Later: fast, athletic and aggressive, they can spot from a distance or burst from hidden rooms, and are relentless in pursuit. There are several special zombie types similar to the Tanks, Boomers, Chargers and Spitters of Left4Dead, and by night the terrifying "Volatile" is like something from Resident Evil; practically invincible, the only effective course of action is to run through the dark to escape them. The zombie classes appear to logically correlate to stages of infection. For instance, soon after turning, a bitten person becomes a viral, which explains the occasional, human pleas for help that come from virals in between attacks. The net effect is a world that appears internally consistent and relatively realistic.

    The area of the game however that I found most impressive was the environment. Dying Light is set in a fictional territory called "Harran." Despite several cues that present Harran as a Middle Eastern country, such as Middle Eastern radio music, geography and Arabic-sounding NPC names and accents, the architecture of Old Town strikes me as more Mediterranean. When coupled with English signage, Harran presents itself as an impressively non-derivative setting. Old Town in particular is absolutely stunning, and there were several instances where I found myself mournfully reflecting on the fact that it is a fictional location. In better days, it is just the type of place I would like to visit for a holiday, and the very fact that I could picture myself going to its museum or wandering its streets demonstrates how effectively the location is rendered as a real place that has gone to hell.

    Unfortunately, there are areas of Dying Light that felt like throwbacks to inefficient gaming conventions of times past. The parkour system is a central aspect of the game that has been favourably compared to other first person free running games like Mirrors Edge, whilst simultaneously praised for its realism. Dying Light neither adopts the "hold space and W" tactic that makes free-running a breeze in modern games like Assassins Creed and Watchdogs, nor the bright visual cues so iconic in Mirrors Edge. Instead, to jump to a ledge it is necessary to centre the reticule on it directly and hold space, and whilst there are some environmental hints, such as black-and-yellow rebars that denote climbable ledges and blue awnings/trash bundles for soft-landings, they are not as consistently applied as they are in Mirrors Edge.

    The problem with this approach is that the parkour system is not sufficiently limitless to warrant such a "realistic" approach. In Mirrors Edge, the brightly coloured world, to me, as much represented the world as seen by a parkour expert as it contributed to its clean aesthetic. Climbable ledges and safe landing zones stood out to my avatar as I imagine they would to another free runner, whereas I, as a novice, would miss them. As a player, I feel that whenever my intent is clear, my character should be able to fill in the gaps and execute the move. If I fail because I made the wrong decision then that is fair enough, but failing over a technicality makes for a tedious experience. Unfortunately, there were many situations in Dying Light where I would frustratingly fall to my death trying to execute a simple manoeuvre because a certain ledge wasn't climbable, despite there being no logical reason why it shouldn't be, or because I hadn't positioned my cursor in exactly the right location during a jump. To add to the frustration, my character has two modes - sprinting or shambling along trying to catch his breath. This meant that he would often lose his puff in the middle of a zombie horde and stumble into an attack, when in reality keeping a steady paced jog would be the better tactic.

    Finally, and briefly, the crafting and skill system are too reminiscent of previous generation RPGs. Skill trees, pages of weapon stats and "crafting xxx" dialogs need to be replaced with more dynamic and interactive systems in 2015, building from Skyrim's approach where abilities progress from player use. Keep the nuts and bolts statistics hidden, and something more fun up front!    … Expand
  4. scottmland
    Feb 13, 2016
    7
    Dying Light.
    A perfect sequel to Dead Island without the awkward name and numeral deal.
    But really, Techland outdid themselves in gameplay improvements between these otherwise unrelated zombie combat simulators. The only thing is, how much exactly did they change? I could just say everything is extremely similar, besides what isn’t. But that wouldn’t be much of a review. What we have    Dying Light.
    A perfect sequel to Dead Island without the awkward name and numeral deal.
    But really, Techland outdid themselves in gameplay improvements between these otherwise unrelated zombie combat simulators.
    The only thing is, how much exactly did they change? I could just say everything is extremely similar, besides what isn’t. But that wouldn’t be much of a review.

    What we have here is Dead Island, with some added features. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed playing this game. Let me put it this way; I tried on three separate occasions to play Dead Island, but every time I tried I would get really bored halfway through. Three goddamn tries.
    But I beat Dying Light.

    I’m one of those strange people who thought Mirror’s Edge was a fantastic game, so naturally upon hearing parkour was a large part of the new Techland zombie killer game, I was friggin excited. But I had my reserves, and as it turns out I had good reason. Besides the midnight flights from Mr. Volatile and his friends, the parkour, and the graphics, this is a Dead Island game. It has the same weapon crafting system, which ranges from “Okay, cool” to “Holy crap thats badass” to “Why?”. It doesn't have the imagination of the Dead Rising series, where some weapons are way over the top, but it only added to the fun. In Dying Light, crafting a weapon doesn’t really come down to what is best for your situation, instead it quickly boiled down to what didn't injure me when I stepped over the burning or electrocuted bodies. Even so, I stuck with bleeding and electricity (the mod I used most was called Exorcist and it was super fun) because if it rained the electricity arced out and made a thunderous bang whenever I got a critical hit, which was very satisfying. But having to wait ages for a body to stop having electricity-based seizures, or burning before I could loot it or moved past got old extremely fast. And bleeding did not seem to do anything, but I used it just in case. Also because it didn't hurt me.
    The game also has the same constant fetch quest **** as its predecessor. ALMOST. EVERY. QUEST. I understand your options are limited, but Jesus.
    Zombie combat remained pretty dang good, but again, it got very old. Personally I hated guns in Dead Island, and while they had their uses against Rais’s thugs I hated them in this game too. It sucks when you only use a game feature not because you want to, but because you have little choice.

    The music was good. Nothing to write home about.
    The story was good. I felt for the characters, I felt they were relatable, and every encounter with Rais was pulse pounding and memorable. Again, wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was interesting.

    I played one night of multiplayer, and found it stacked against the human player. The hives are really tough to kill, and the night hunter’s Left-4-Dead-esque pounce is a little overpowered. Then again, multiplayer isn’t my forte, so maybe I was just awful.

    All in all. More of the same AAA zombie game from Techland. The new features felt like gimmicks at times. Fun gimmicks, don't get me wrong, but I really hope this developer leaves its comfort zone in the future. Play it. It’s fun, it’s action packed, and it’s a good game.

    But don't expect a complete original.

    P.s. I'll update when I play some dlc.    … Expand
  5. Rustick
    Jul 7, 2022
    7
    до конца не прошел сюжет не впечатляет боевка очень хорошая как и паркур миссии не особо интересны
  6. EVIL_UJIN
    Oct 15, 2022
    7
    Паркур, открытый мир плюс зомби. Если вас радуют эти три характристики, то смело играйте - город очень большой , побегать-попрыгать есть где. Плюс бегущие за тобой совсем неглупые зомбаки и редкие безопасные зоны с чекопойнтами добавляют адреналина. Самое интересное наступает ночью, когда увеличивается множитель опыта и можно найти самый интересный лут и ... на охоту выходят НОЧНЫЕПаркур, открытый мир плюс зомби. Если вас радуют эти три характристики, то смело играйте - город очень большой , побегать-попрыгать есть где. Плюс бегущие за тобой совсем неглупые зомбаки и редкие безопасные зоны с чекопойнтами добавляют адреналина. Самое интересное наступает ночью, когда увеличивается множитель опыта и можно найти самый интересный лут и ... на охоту выходят НОЧНЫЕ СТАЛКЕРЫ... Они прекрасно бегают за героем по крышам, трубам, находят почти везде и убивают за пару ударов. Это вам не Assasin`s Creed, где от любой стражи элементарно уйти по крышам, попивая чай. В игре не самый интересный сюжет, но много побочных квестов интересных, мрачных локаций для исследования, испытаний в духе "пробейся через толпу зомби к выходу за 30 секунд" или "обгони другого паркурщика" и , конечно же, орды различных зомби. Я не фанат зомбаков, но игра вполне неплоха.… Expand
  7. mathewdbarlow
    Jan 29, 2015
    7
    I have been eagerly awaiting this game for some time since seeing a teaser trailer released last year. Unfortunately I've been left slightly disappointed with the end result. Not being a great fan of multiplayer, I like to complete a game on my own first so this review is based solely on single player action. I'm around 18 hours into the game and at 45% story completion.

    First the    I have been eagerly awaiting this game for some time since seeing a teaser trailer released last year. Unfortunately I've been left slightly disappointed with the end result. Not being a great fan of multiplayer, I like to complete a game on my own first so this review is based solely on single player action. I'm around 18 hours into the game and at 45% story completion.

    First the bad:
    The most disappointing element for me was the very limited map size, which you can run across end to end in around 7 minutes. I explored the entire map area and restored all safe houses within 8 hours of playing, leaving little in the way of exploring for later in the game. As far as I can tell there are no areas inaccessible that will require later missions to unlock. Compared to a truly open world game such as Skyrim or GTA, Dying Light's world is minute. With other games soon to be released with maps 20-30 times bigger than this (eg.The Witcher 3), this doesn't seem enough to satisfy my adventurous side.

    Another disappointment is the repetitive nature of the environments, NPCs and zombies. There are around 5 or 6 types of zombie lurking around so far, and they all wear basically the same outfit or carry the same injuries etc. The same can be said for the rival gang members you encounter, with each roving band being the same as the last. Buildings and textures are continually repeated throughout the landscape as well, and many buildings are not accessible, again questioning whether it is truly an 'open world' experience.

    Now the good:
    Story is engaging and voice acting is good quality. The NPCs are well characterized, some likeable, some genuinely sinister. The day/night mechanic adds a new dimension to the zombie/survival genre I have not encountered before and being chased by the virals in the dark can be an edge of your seat experience as you strive to make the nearest safe house with your survival points in the bag!

    The graphics are also gorgeous, even without being on the highest settings, and the world is well designed to accommodate and test the parkour mechanics.

    Level up system is also well balanced and nicely opens up new skills such as crafting and extra combat techniques, as the story progresses.

    Performance:
    In terms of optimization and performance, personally I have had no issues and have been averaging around 45FPS outside on low/medium settings (which still look good). This is with an ATI HD 6870 gpu and a 3rd generation i5 processor at 3.3ghz. I am running the game off a dedicated SSD which I think helps, and have windows 7 running of another SSD. I have turned down field of view (FOV) settings below default which boosted frame rates instantly, given the limited RAM onboard my graphics card.

    In summary, it's not a bad game and a great concept, I just think they could have done so much more with the size and depth f the environment in order to make it truly immersive.    … Expand
  8. Muzze
    Feb 14, 2015
    5
    - Bad performance, poor optimization.
    - Mash the F-button to open doors and turn valves.
    - Waste your time endlessly lockpicking chests and cars for pointless loot. - Escape stupid zombies with no effort, even at night. - Remember climbing those towers in Farcry 3 and 4? They are here as well. You will fall, die and have to reclimb these. Makes for really interesting gameplay. -    - Bad performance, poor optimization.
    - Mash the F-button to open doors and turn valves.
    - Waste your time endlessly lockpicking chests and cars for pointless loot.
    - Escape stupid zombies with no effort, even at night.
    - Remember climbing those towers in Farcry 3 and 4? They are here as well. You will fall, die and have to reclimb these. Makes for really interesting gameplay.
    - Bored? Try the pointless PvP-system, with no rewards and no interesting gameplay.
    - Want more content? Collect flags, statues, notes and recorded messages. No purpose in doing this whatsoever, and they are placed in the most unimaginative way. They are everywhere, no sense of accomplishment in finding them.
    - Bad voice acting, bad story, stuffed with cutscenes.
    - INTERACTIVE CUTSCENE AGAINST THE FINAL BOSS.

    This is definitely a no-buy. This is a soulless, unpolished product, which could have been so much more than just the parkour simulation that is became. Good thing that paying is optional.    … Expand
  9. BoTheMastaOfAll
    Apr 14, 2015
    6
    Would love it if it wasn't suffering from a bad case of AAAitis. Still recommend because parkour and zombies, but it gets annoying.

    Opening sequence gets your character bit. This causes seizures at defined points in the plot ala Halo 3 Cortana, and they're never not annoying. ~20 minute tutorial for a fps. Like I've never played one of these before. Why does the main character not    Would love it if it wasn't suffering from a bad case of AAAitis. Still recommend because parkour and zombies, but it gets annoying.

    Opening sequence gets your character bit. This causes seizures at defined points in the plot ala Halo 3 Cortana, and they're never not annoying.
    ~20 minute tutorial for a fps. Like I've never played one of these before.
    Why does the main character not shoot the bandits at the beginning? Their intro said he was spec ops.
    Control constantly ripped from player so we can have 1st person over-acted scenes. Again, never not annoying.
    Plot holes. All of the plot holes. I wouldn't normally mind if the game weren't trying so hard on its story.
    All of the sewer missions.
    ~15 minute dream sequence complete with surreal floating platforms and slow movement. Because reasons.
    Main character completely inconsistent with back story.
    Rpg loot system complete with colored name rarity indicators. Not enough WoW up in here I guess.
    Main villian hates you because video game. Seriously he has no reason to initially hate you. I mean you do kill his men and steal their supply drops, but he makes no mention of it. He goes to great lengths to spite you for some reason.

    KRRRRAAAAAANNNNEEEE. That's actually a plus I lol'd hard.    … Expand
  10. Chaeote
    Jan 31, 2015
    7
    This game is simple to describe:

    The Last of Us ... kinda

    meets

    Mirror's Edge ... kinda

    meets

    Fallout ... kinda

    It's not bad, it's just sorta.... meh.
  11. ThinkSamich
    Feb 1, 2015
    7
    As many have already stated, Dying Light seems to bring together a bunch of good features from other titles without actually trying anything new. It's like a vegetable stew of tried and tested features with Dead Island as a base. The game feels like what Dead Island should have been in the first place, in fact I spent a lot of time saying "oh, I've done this before in Dead Island."

    "Oh    As many have already stated, Dying Light seems to bring together a bunch of good features from other titles without actually trying anything new. It's like a vegetable stew of tried and tested features with Dead Island as a base. The game feels like what Dead Island should have been in the first place, in fact I spent a lot of time saying "oh, I've done this before in Dead Island."

    "Oh hey, it's the office building with an excessive amount of breakable glass, just like Dead Island. Oh, it's that annoying part of the game where I have to traverse the sewers again, just like Dead Island." Techland, no more long corridor sewers please.

    I'm on the fence with Techland, there's so much they do undeniably right. They seem to be experts at setting atmosphere, the city overlooks in Dying Light are beautiful. The map was done by a group of studied individuals who must have planned it meticulously. Walking into a room and reading the story of the last moments from the corpse on the floor, just from the visual cues in the room is something only a handful of games do right. Dying Light is one of those games. One final standout feature, zombie AI evolves throughout the game. The zombies get consistently more aggressive and it's a fantastic touch, most RPGs would have scaled the health and been done with it. Techland goes above and beyond.

    At the same time, there are a lot of issues with the game, and several reoccurring mistakes Techland seems to make. Optimization is one of them, if you think back to the launch of Dead Island, the game was notoriously poorly optimized for the PC to the point where hundreds of Steam users demanded and received refunds. Dying Light isn't quite this bad, but it does have a barrage of optimization issues that will keep the average PC user from enjoying the game.

    From here there are just several design issues that I personally do not agree with. The permanent film-grain effect is horrible. The way the dead island/dying light engine makes the textures of everything in the environment look like they have a thick layer of wax over them bothers me. There seems to be far too many dark places unoccupied by virals during the day. The Parkour system works most of the time, but when it doesn't it will be during the worst times possible. The way the game handles death seems rushed at best, you're slapped with an XP penalty and respawned at the nearest safehouse. You can watch virals spawn from the air endlessly if you make enough noise, shouldn't they stop coming at some point? The way they handle zombie hordes is tricky, there are much more zombies on screen than can be active at one time. It seems like roughly 8-10 zombies can be actively pursuing you at any give time, the other zombies on the screen are idle. There are lots of assets reused from Dead Island. It's important to note that the things listed in this paragraph do not necessarily change the score of the review. I understand they're quite specific, just issues I find bothersome.

    With all of that said, Techland is a company I am excited to see grow. I would be excited to see them on a fresh game engine. They just need to step out of their comfort zone.    … Expand
  12. epeternally
    Feb 4, 2015
    7
    Fun, flawed, and suffering from a story that is so bizarre and stilted that it is substantially worse than if the game didn't have one at all. It's a good game that could be a great one with a couple more patches, and even without is worth playing, even if it isn't worth the $60 asking price. At the end of the day, the sheer amount of fun that there is to be had here carries past the awfulFun, flawed, and suffering from a story that is so bizarre and stilted that it is substantially worse than if the game didn't have one at all. It's a good game that could be a great one with a couple more patches, and even without is worth playing, even if it isn't worth the $60 asking price. At the end of the day, the sheer amount of fun that there is to be had here carries past the awful writing and neverending stream of fetch quests to make this still a good experience overall. It's just a shame that the time and effort wasn't put in to make it a great one, because with more QA and much better writing this could have been an early GOTY contender.… Expand
  13. perlbuilder
    Dec 6, 2015
    7
    I paid $20 for this game along with some DLC during a Steam sale. I can't really say anything great about this game since I've yet to find it immersive. I haven't even gotten past the first tower climb and wanting to hang it up and go back to playing Just Cause 2. I have formed some thoughts so far and I apologize if I echo others.

    - Graphics. I turned up the graphics with my GTX    I paid $20 for this game along with some DLC during a Steam sale. I can't really say anything great about this game since I've yet to find it immersive. I haven't even gotten past the first tower climb and wanting to hang it up and go back to playing Just Cause 2. I have formed some thoughts so far and I apologize if I echo others.

    - Graphics. I turned up the graphics with my GTX 970 and remain unimpressed. It's too easy to visually miss the spitters. Gee, I wonder where the spitter idea came from? At least in L4D2, you can see and hear them.

    - Story. Didn't I play this already in a game called Dead Island? No because you play as an SF operator. Wait, that was Just Cause.

    - Controls. Meh. Lots of players seem to like the Parkour, but I get hung up in it. I fall, lose health and then must loot for supplies to create a MedKit. I am I having fun yet?

    -Looting and Crafing. It would have been an OK concept like Far Cry 3 or even Dead Island but this game takes it overboard. Really, it adds nothing to the game play since you must refocus from your mission to looking for supplies that suddenly dry up. All just to remain in the game and not die.

    Right now I'm between games so I'll keep playing and maybe my opinion will change. Maybe I'll get used to the controls and getting hit by spitters that I can't see or hear coming.

    Happy gaming!    … Expand
  14. SarudeDankstorm
    Aug 19, 2015
    7
    Dying light takes all the good elements from the Dead Island series, adds parkour and then gives you an open-world playground to explore. While the free-running is no-where near at the same level as Mirror's Edge, it still allows you to fluidly travel across the map.

    Game play wise, the game is very fun; melee combat is brutal and satisfying (as it should be) and firearms are used at an    Dying light takes all the good elements from the Dead Island series, adds parkour and then gives you an open-world playground to explore. While the free-running is no-where near at the same level as Mirror's Edge, it still allows you to fluidly travel across the map.

    Game play wise, the game is very fun; melee combat is brutal and satisfying (as it should be) and firearms are used at an appropriate rate through the campaign. The main thing that I dislike about Dying Light is the lack of character development. For a game that primarily focuses on a single player experience, only a few of the characters that are introduced in the story are really developed, and this means that you don't really feel connected to them as you would to characters in say, Last of Us.

    Overall, a very good game to pick up and play, although I would recommend purchasing it at a discounted price, as it's highly likely that you will finish the main story and a few side quests and then never touch the game again.    … Expand
  15. DB11
    Jan 2, 2016
    7
    One of the more frustrating games I will ever play. In nearly every facet of the game the devs came very close to making something amazing but fell just short. The combination of these shortcomings is a poorly executed mess that leaves the player saying "it was so close, yet so far away.. from a good game".
  16. Jetpil0t
    Jan 28, 2015
    7
    A really excellent game marred by fairly significant performance issues on PC. There is a lot to like here, the gameplay is smooth and well executed, difficulty level pis well tuned, story is substantial and interesting and side quests and missions are sizable, diverse and rarely repetitive.

    The enemy design and difficulty level is really well crafted, which is rare, especially in these    A really excellent game marred by fairly significant performance issues on PC. There is a lot to like here, the gameplay is smooth and well executed, difficulty level pis well tuned, story is substantial and interesting and side quests and missions are sizable, diverse and rarely repetitive.

    The enemy design and difficulty level is really well crafted, which is rare, especially in these types of open world games. Enemies are diverse and challenging and while there is no difficulty setting, players can moderate their own difficulty level through their play style which measures anywhere from moderate to quite difficult.

    The quest design is a real stand out too, as you rarely undertake any pointless or tedious quests and unexpected things consistently take place throughout, keeping things interesting and always worth doing.

    However the games performance on PC leaves quite a lot to be desired. I have played this on an R9 290 and a GTX 970, AMD GPU performance borders on unplayable while nVidia GPU performance is merely average despite the prevalence of nVidia Gameworks and proprietary features. AMD CPU performance takes a real hit too as the game seems to be not so well optimized leaving the single core performance of Intel CPUs at a significant advantage. That being said, the game presents with very few if any technical bugs, so hopefully any developer efforts will be focused solely on optimization.

    Quite a shame really as there are so many well crafted systems in the game, it's hard to fault it elsewhere and a real stand out title to get things kicked off in 2015.    … Expand
  17. Captainrazel
    Jan 28, 2015
    7
    My first horror game to play and make me feel good, Game made me feel like surviving in Zombie world type off. The graphics are nice, clean textures- great environments, and good character models but not completely Polish. Characters are not that much good but ok. { RAHIM was my most like/favorite person in game },

    Gameplay- It plays much like a cleaner, better looking, more fluid, and    My first horror game to play and make me feel good, Game made me feel like surviving in Zombie world type off. The graphics are nice, clean textures- great environments, and good character models but not completely Polish. Characters are not that much good but ok. { RAHIM was my most like/favorite person in game },

    Gameplay- It plays much like a cleaner, better looking, more fluid, and more fun dead island.Soundtrack is arabic kind of theme which is OK.

    {Credits to Alecmann} Story- This is the underwhelming portion. The story is far more serious than that of dead island. No dark humor, no super cheesy characters (well not as cheesy). You find yourself helping the few survivors in the city with fetch quests and the typical point A to point B. There are a couple surprises- and a passable story to match. None of it is bad, but none of it is great. It is clear the time was put into the gameplay. On the plus side the game is sizable. If you are a completion you could get 70 hours out of this game, though the average gamer can expect 30 to 40. [7.5/10]    … Expand
  18. Veska
    Feb 2, 2015
    7
    It is Dead Island with parkour. However, do not expect more. The best thing in this game in night and fight in night. But take 321895656 weapons, because every thing, that i use for killing sweet zombies was destoyed until 10 maybe 15 zombies. What is this? Some people say, that this game has nice graphis and i say it is true, but in some parts. Face and texture are very nice. But others?It is Dead Island with parkour. However, do not expect more. The best thing in this game in night and fight in night. But take 321895656 weapons, because every thing, that i use for killing sweet zombies was destoyed until 10 maybe 15 zombies. What is this? Some people say, that this game has nice graphis and i say it is true, but in some parts. Face and texture are very nice. But others? Boring environment, repeating textures and building were created by CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

    And story? Ou **** it is as porn. You see (play) it for other things then story. If you like series Dead Island it is game for you. But for others? Maybe but try it then you will buy it.    … Expand
  19. NegativeNine
    Apr 1, 2017
    5
    Worth a buy ?
    No. Nice graphics, freerunning, climbing BUT everything else is mediocre or worse:
    1) The game is too arcade-ish: You'll get too powerful later in the game. 2) There just isn't any survival at all: There's literally no need to search any area for supplies other than for crafting. Injuries, medicine, food, water mechanics aren't present in the game. All vendors shower    Worth a buy ?
    No. Nice graphics, freerunning, climbing BUT everything else is mediocre or worse:

    1) The game is too arcade-ish:
    You'll get too powerful later in the game.
    2) There just isn't any survival at all:
    There's literally no need to search any area for supplies other than for crafting. Injuries, medicine, food, water mechanics aren't present in the game. All vendors shower you with weapons and ammo.
    3) Bad economy:
    Item quality means nothing: Neither how often needed nor found. You'll pile up cash as vendors don't sell any crafting reagents but shower you with weapons & ammo. Totally broken economy.
    4) Combat:
    They tried to make it interesting but only for melee, where the 2h weapons suck.
    Ranged combat is blatant shoot another with no cover system and without any great utility items to craft (smoke bomb / zombie attracting things / flashbang etc.)
    Sneaking doesn't work too well as there's no stealth gameplay within the game despite it needed it (especially at night) nor threat shake off mechanics of some form so one mistake means alert status enemies.
    Camouflage is an overpowered anti zombie talent: Cover in yourself in zombie blood and they won't attack you anymore, even when you start killing them. Shouldn't be in the game to keep the zombie threat a thing.
    Despite being arcade-like I miss fun weapons like a chainsaw, grenade launcher, RPG, sniper rifle, heavy assault rifle etc.
    Ranged weapons don't get any upgrades (supressor, scope, special ammo, melee swing option or anything fun / survival related for a game).
    Weapon types don't matter: No bonus damage vs certain enemies.
    2h weapons deal almost the same damage as 1h weapons. Only upside is their area effect with ground slam (weak, short duration) and windmill swing (can be interrupted mid-animation by enemy attacks; unreliable).
    5) Great features used wrong:
    Freerunning: Just the starting zone is designed to favor this. Later you get a grappling hook and no more exhaustion, trivializing and sabotaging freerunning and -climbing along with the threat enemies then pose.
    Sneaking / stealth: Not in the game. It's just unnoticed vs noticed. Neither shadow nor noise levels, no camouflage gear, no objects to hide in, just nothing except for zombie blood/potion so most zombies ignore you.
    Day & night: Night didn't get it's own mechanic and thus is meaningless, except for some quests. It grants bonus experience but that's it: there's neither camouflage, nor noise, nor sneaking, nor special vendors, nor extra stuff to find just and only during night time.
    Air drops: A fun mechanic, encouraging everything the game offers. Removed during campaign progress and then never makes it back into the game.
    Talent tree: It's just unlock all instead of make choices. No interesting multiplayer builds and different strengths / weaknesses. You get everything.
    Crafting: It's all just weapons, upgrades and grenades with little utility or interesting items, potions and firecrackers being among the most useful of them. Avoid fire / lightning / impact crafts because they either backfire or draw more agile zombies (=bad design, as upgrades you pay for make things worse). Sadly no crafting that allows to access new areas (gas mask, hazard suit etc.). Annoying single click crafting instead of set x amounts to craft. You can't construct or fortify anything on your own. There aren't timers or visual effects for the duration of some potion effects.
    Lockpicking: Unbalanced. With the exception of easy ambulance locks only hard locks are worth the effort. Very hard locks only drop stuff vendors shower you with anyway. Everything below hard just drops garbage. The much needed crafting items you're constantly running low on you'll find in non-locked objects. Bad design.
    6) Story:
    It's pretty lame, made up and you don't have any say in how anything plays out ever. It's annoying whenever it tries to be like an action movie, making you run through a parkour while being chased / shot at because you're in unfamiliar terrain and immediately have to figure out where the designers want you to go (absence of many paths in a freerunning game). Final boss fight mechanics are arbitary and horrendous as all your gear, skills and unlocks don't matter there.

    Programmers, just wtf are you doing with your own game ! The whole game feels like someone had a good concept idea of freerunning and graphics, took the time to design some wonderful maps and then came the other guys and tried to ruin every other aspect of the game as hard as they could.
    I still want to pat the level designers on the back for having done a good job most of the time.
    Just story, mechanics, crafting and economy should get a huge overhaul.
    DO NOT buy the addon. Except for the crossbow everything there is worse.
    Devs: PROMOTE freerunning by level design, don't force it, add the addon's car and subway station fast travel for people who prefer that. Better job next game, pls.    … Expand
  20. masterkiser
    Feb 2, 2015
    7
    Well I Don't really Like to Write Review's but I felt the need to Write One about this game. So Lets get to Optimization Not the best to be honest, I have a 980 and an i5 4670k along With 16 gb of ram and I was barley Pulling 40 fps. That is unacceptable So If you are planning to get this game Keep in mind that you may Encounter issues. Now with that out of the way let me tell you howWell I Don't really Like to Write Review's but I felt the need to Write One about this game. So Lets get to Optimization Not the best to be honest, I have a 980 and an i5 4670k along With 16 gb of ram and I was barley Pulling 40 fps. That is unacceptable So If you are planning to get this game Keep in mind that you may Encounter issues. Now with that out of the way let me tell you how much Fun I had with this game. The Main campaign Is Only about 5 hours long If you rush Through But With side quest's it can easily take you 12+ Hours!

    Now Gameplay Wise It's essentially Dead Island Mixed With mirrors Edge. That can be Either Good or bad But luckily in the game's case They Did it right. The Combat is a little wonky at first but you get used to it and it gets much better when you upgrade your Combat to at least adept. The parkour Honestly Sucks at first as well but Much alike the Combat all you need to do is upgrade it and it will get so much better.

    The Story is alright I mean It's not the greatest But at least it has one (Looking at you dead island) The characters are Forgettable and by the Time you Feel nothing for them. What is nice However is when you are just taking a stroll you can sometimes Grab an airdrop or Stumble upon Someone who need's help. and you can Find people who tell you about what they were doing before the Virus, It's pretty interesting.

    Now one of the major mechanics they Advertised was this Night Time mode. It is Terrifying at first Yes But eventually It Loses it's touch. But your adrenaline always Get's pumping when you're Running From Virals. Then you have this mode called be the zombie which is pretty cool actually but sometimes if you have Multiplayer on They can invade you and it gets Kinda one sided Especially If you are going solo.

    Overall I would recommend the game but it would be a cautious Purchase with the optimization issues so If I were you i would Either wait for patches, Or buy it on a console.    … Expand
  21. dystopeon
    Feb 5, 2015
    7
    The game's not quite a solid 7, but gets a conceded pass in that respect. It runs solid in 1080p but you'll need 4x sli 980's or wait until next gen gfx to run 4k, its still that ól chrome engine. The main story is very, very bad (not CoD bad tho) - however the sides quest missions are imbued with some writing talent and are for the main part, enjoyable.

    The combat mechanics are    The game's not quite a solid 7, but gets a conceded pass in that respect. It runs solid in 1080p but you'll need 4x sli 980's or wait until next gen gfx to run 4k, its still that ól chrome engine. The main story is very, very bad (not CoD bad tho) - however the sides quest missions are imbued with some writing talent and are for the main part, enjoyable.

    The combat mechanics are extended (such as dashing) however the hit detection and pointless weapons/animations (knife) are still left in. Bizarrely, zombie grab animations can break your combat 'flow' - unless you invest in several perks to make the game NOT do that?! Why just not leave it the **** out? These former eastbloc devs need to learn from musicians - what you leave out is more important than what you leave in.

    Also, I have to play this mother****er until level 14 (many gd hrs) to get a gd katana?!, just like the last game. The RPG/Perk/item/crafting aspect is really broken, it borrows from like action/rpg games perk systems - but really it just shouldn't have used one, the items perks should have been passive, using meters. The crafting/weapons degradation system is similarly bizarre (left over from the first game), the devs seek to restrict, level and balance everything at once instead of making the game fun to grind. If they just leveled certain zone enemies and not the weapons, plus created a large variety of melee weapons it would have been fun. The Katana or any weapon should be available right at the beginning, its the weapon type that should receive perks - this would make the game much more fun. Then once you reach much higher levels, add in cool side weapons with one or two perk slots (eg. Tonfa, Nunchaku) please, I just wanna beat on stuff with nunchucks yo. Maybe next sequel?    … Expand
  22. VIDO1122
    Feb 26, 2015
    6
    This game could be SO MUCH BETTER if it was a little bit harder or having a hardcore mode. It's just way too easy. I'm in OLD TOWN and I don't feel any, zero adrenaline rush because dying here is pointless. You die at night and you go straight to a safe house. WTF??? You have none sensation of reward whatsoever. We need a system that when you die, you lose something. Like all your moneyThis game could be SO MUCH BETTER if it was a little bit harder or having a hardcore mode. It's just way too easy. I'm in OLD TOWN and I don't feel any, zero adrenaline rush because dying here is pointless. You die at night and you go straight to a safe house. WTF??? You have none sensation of reward whatsoever. We need a system that when you die, you lose something. Like all your money and stuff and you need to take back by going back to the exact same point of your last death. If you die on the way to take back your stuff, you lose all your money and the 4 weapons you were holding. PERIOD. And leave the CURRENT MODE for noobs. Thats just freaking RIDICULOUS NOT HAVING A HARDCORE MODE. I'm playing this like "MEH, WHATEVER" Dying light had A ZILION TON OF POTENTIAL if TECHLAND had created modes like EASY= **** MODE NORMAL = REGULAR GUY MODE HARDCORE (like when you're so freaking scared that even an oiled needle can't get through your **** THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!… Expand
  23. Sweetew
    Jan 27, 2015
    5
    after having played dying light for a few hours, there´s one sentence that summarizes my feelings about this this game - unoptimised.

    Yep, this is a horrible port job, and it´s no wonder techland gave out review copies 12 hours before launch. Shady as hell guys! Save your money for now. What is here feels decent, and the game will probably be good but HOLD YOUR GODDAMN CASH IN YOUR    after having played dying light for a few hours, there´s one sentence that summarizes my feelings about this this game - unoptimised.

    Yep, this is a horrible port job, and it´s no wonder techland gave out review copies 12 hours before launch.
    Shady as hell guys!

    Save your money for now. What is here feels decent, and the game will probably be good but HOLD YOUR GODDAMN CASH IN YOUR WALLET UNTIL THEY FIX THIS ****    … Expand
  24. pepikJS
    Feb 2, 2015
    5
    This is clear example of an unoriginal budget game. The story is a non-sense mess about some special agent paradropping into some arabian zombie infected city, nobody knows why there are zombies, from where they came from. Basically - you have main quest, you start few side quests, after while you have no idea who is who, what quest is this and that, for who are you making that quest...This is clear example of an unoriginal budget game. The story is a non-sense mess about some special agent paradropping into some arabian zombie infected city, nobody knows why there are zombies, from where they came from. Basically - you have main quest, you start few side quests, after while you have no idea who is who, what quest is this and that, for who are you making that quest... Its a mess. Game is copying parkour from Mirrors Edge, climbing towers from Far Cry 3, customizable melee weapons from Dead Rising, there's nothing original in this game. Pure budget. Techland was always making first person shooters and that sort of games with shiny graphics visuals, but in the inside all of their games were dumb and dull. This game is no exception. Story - ridiculous and banal. Gameplay - run like a darude sandstorm, punch zombies, figure out how to get inside some building... you will get enough of that quickly, its repetitive as shlt.… Expand
  25. zainyboy18
    Feb 4, 2015
    7
    I pre-ordered this game and finished it recently. I felt I needed to tell people about the serious over-hyping of this game.

    Story: The story is poor and by far the worst thing in the game, filled with cliches and plot points you can see from a mile away. But the characters are by far the worst, seriously. They're so bland and under-developed that you couldn't give 2 sh*ts whether or    I pre-ordered this game and finished it recently. I felt I needed to tell people about the serious over-hyping of this game.

    Story:
    The story is poor and by far the worst thing in the game, filled with cliches and plot points you can see from a mile away. But the characters are by far the worst, seriously. They're so bland and under-developed that you couldn't give 2 sh*ts whether or not they die. Hell, when someone died I spent more time trying to figure out who they were rather than actually paying attention to them dying. I mean, Brecken disappears halfway through the game without any mention of his name again. They really build up the main villain as well, trying to make a discount Vaas from Farcry 3, but it just wasn't working for me. He had no real substance or meaning behind what he was doing, other than just doing it for the sh*ts and giggles. He stands monologuing, telling you all of his evil schemes and actually letting you in on his whereabouts in the end of the game, just before he is about to make his escape and win! Why?! So stupid it's unreal. It takes a darker and more serious tone to Dead Island but it doesn't seem to pay off in my opinion.

    Graphics, Sound and Performance:
    I'm not really an expert on sound design or anything but from my eyes, the sound was done fairly well, it definitely deterred me from going out at night, hearing the agonising screams of the virals. The intense music during pursuits was nice, it did a good job of immersing me in the game. Graphics are nice, not The Last Of Us standard, but nevertheless they are good. However there are performance issues on the PC version, mainly stemming from the view distance. Turning it up or down doesn't really change much apart from the view distance in the interior maps or the pop-in for zombies. FPS takes a nose-dive when you finish the tutorial and go outside.

    Gameplay:
    First things first, the parkour is mostly well-done. However, you can encounter some parkour related bugs, most comical and some just annoying. It can vary from flying through a wall to getting stuck in-between 2 objects, forcing you to commit suicide. Survivor point don't do much for the game as far as I can tell, although I didn't look too intensely into what they did. The combat feels smoother than Dead Island for certain, no complaints there. The new crafting system and player stash are really nice features as well, allowing easy storage for weapons, but from what I can tell, it's used mostly for duplicating items to become a billionaire. Side quests are pretty much the same as Dead Island; "Fetch this for me", "Turn this on for me". Very repetitive point A to point B missions. I do enjoy the free running challenges though, most of them provide a nice challenge and are quite fun to do. However, the main problem from a gameplay perspective is that the game gives you a false sense of freedom. It gives you an amazing open world to explore and run the parkour, but when a story mission rolls around, especially after the halfway point in the game, you're thrown into a cramped and linear interior map. Once you get the grappling hook, the open world actually becomes a bore to traverse, just spamming middle mouse button and flying across the map in no time. The day-night cycle change is one of the games more interesting and better points. The virals become a real challenge until a very late point in the game, making it pretty much your only option to run away. Despite this it just becomes an absolute drag to finish the story, with a lazy QTE final boss battle at the end. It's such a cop-out move to have the villain you tried to big up and make him seem impossible to kill, defeated by pressing 5 or 6 buttons.

    Overall this game isn't terrible, it's definitely an improvement on Dead Island, however personally I just don't think it lives up to the hype. I'd say wait until the price drops or you see it on sale to pick it up.    … Expand
  26. Visko
    Jan 29, 2015
    6
    I wouldn't recommend this game for what it's being advertised as. It's not much of a Survival game at all. Not much of an open world experience. Not much of a story. It is however a good combination of tried and true game mechanics in a zombie-afflicted fictional middle eastern city.

    I haven't tried Co-op, but considering it's nothing at all what's being advertised (as expected), there    I wouldn't recommend this game for what it's being advertised as. It's not much of a Survival game at all. Not much of an open world experience. Not much of a story. It is however a good combination of tried and true game mechanics in a zombie-afflicted fictional middle eastern city.

    I haven't tried Co-op, but considering it's nothing at all what's being advertised (as expected), there was nothing within my soul telling me to bother trying it.

    It is however a good combination of tried and true.. oh yeah, I already said that. So anyways, if you liked playing every single Assassin's Creed, you'll probably like this game too. Especially if Zombies are also awesome in your book.

    If not, don't expect this game to give you any thrills outside of what I already mentioned. Not to say that I can't have fun with it, I just can't recommend it.    … Expand
  27. Retpally
    Jan 27, 2015
    7
    I have played a few hours of this game, the gameplay is good, the graphics are good, the price is good (49.99$) and the story is okay, the only big problem is performance I am playing the game at high 1080p and view distance at half and my fps is at 30-40, my computer is good (i7 3770, 12gb ram, r9 290), even if I lower the video settings I only get 3-4 more fps. I hope they will patchI have played a few hours of this game, the gameplay is good, the graphics are good, the price is good (49.99$) and the story is okay, the only big problem is performance I am playing the game at high 1080p and view distance at half and my fps is at 30-40, my computer is good (i7 3770, 12gb ram, r9 290), even if I lower the video settings I only get 3-4 more fps. I hope they will patch performance because the bad fps can affect the gameplay.… Expand
  28. AhmedShehab95
    Jan 27, 2015
    6
    Badly optimized,frame drops here and there even on high end rigs.
    it has optimization issues that effects the performance of the game.
    LOD:the load of distance here is the worst part of the graphic settings set it on high takes a huge drop to the frames. AA:not many options for Anti-Aliasing just the On/Off option,and still we have no decent AA for the objects,buildings etc.    Badly optimized,frame drops here and there even on high end rigs.
    it has optimization issues that effects the performance of the game.

    LOD:the load of distance here is the worst part of the graphic settings set it on high takes a huge drop to the frames.

    AA:not many options for Anti-Aliasing just the On/Off option,and still we have no decent AA for the objects,buildings etc.

    AO/HBAO+:not to many options too for Ambient Occlusion just turn AO on and leave the HBAO+

    Shadows:another badly optimized option but at least you still have many choices to improve in game performance.

    Vsync: turning that off makes the game run like garbage,turning it on will cause more fps drop.

    THE GAME STORY IS GOOD AND IT'S FUN.but if they don't patch the performance issues than it'll be another bad port and PC gamers will be Fu*ed again

    not everyone have a God-Like PC with 12GB of VRAM for fu*k sake.    … Expand
  29. verbal_666
    Jul 31, 2017
    5
    The game is fun at first, but going forward becomes repetitive and frustrating. Too aggressive zombies, few weapons, few bullets, too high difficulty for a videogame, where I just want to have fun and not simulate being in a horror movie or in horror reality :-) !!! Graphics are really brilliant and nice, on a GTX 1060 you can have all at ULTRA in FullHD. Disappointed!!! It could have beenThe game is fun at first, but going forward becomes repetitive and frustrating. Too aggressive zombies, few weapons, few bullets, too high difficulty for a videogame, where I just want to have fun and not simulate being in a horror movie or in horror reality :-) !!! Graphics are really brilliant and nice, on a GTX 1060 you can have all at ULTRA in FullHD. Disappointed!!! It could have been a great game, become a frustrating repetitive horror simulator!!!… Expand
  30. Indrigis
    Jan 27, 2015
    5
    The game runs fine. Sure, it has worse graphics than any other modern game and the performance issues are right there but turning all the graphics options to a minimum makes it run ok. Doesn't crash to desktop either, so a huge progress from Dead Island here.

    It has a host other problems, however, like the narrative being awfully stupid with "plot twists" visible from a mile away, the    The game runs fine. Sure, it has worse graphics than any other modern game and the performance issues are right there but turning all the graphics options to a minimum makes it run ok. Doesn't crash to desktop either, so a huge progress from Dead Island here.

    It has a host other problems, however, like the narrative being awfully stupid with "plot twists" visible from a mile away, the cast being mostly annoying and easily forgettable and the protagonist being an unbelievable wimp who can't sprint for more than 20 seconds or swing a weapon more than three times in a row (until you learn to run for a whole THIRTY seconds in a row and master the ancient chinese art of stomping down on fallen enemies heads), and the hugely touted "parkour" being a series of "run forward, aim for a ledge, press jump and watch your hero s-l-o-w-l-y climb it" episodes. It literally has NO tempo.

    Techland seems to have mastered the "first person swing-at-zombies-with-flimsy-weapons" genre perfectly. Now they need to learn to make their games actually interesting.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

11
#11 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015
48
#48 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 40 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 40
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 40
  3. Negative: 2 out of 40
  1. Ten Ton Hammer
    Nov 1, 2015
    80
    Don't let the Dead Island affiliation sway you one way or the other, Dying Light is its own game and it's rightfully fun, but it's not something that is Game of the Year material to me. If you like zombie games and open world games then this is worth the pickup, but otherwise I'd skip it until it goes on sale, because it's still a really fun game no matter how you dice it.
    Read full review
  2. Washington Post
    Apr 6, 2015
    40
    It’s a game of a thousand house calls, in which everyone needs something they can’t get or do for themselves. Catastrophe has made every doorstep a welcome place, with disease and death the justification for an openness that might seem unthinkable under other circumstances.
    Read full review
  3. Dealspwn
    Mar 22, 2015
    70
    If you can get past the clunky storytelling and the repetitive missions, you might a diamond in the rough that really empowers you to revel in the design aspects of its zombie-infested sandbox.
    Read full review
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