Dying Light

Dying Light is composed of elements used previously in other games, but the end result is well-thought-out and interesting, and it provides a unique gameplay experience.

If you need it in bite-sized terms, combine the likes of movement in Mirror's Edge, the combat and crafting of Dead Island and Dead Rising with the open-world sides of both Fallout 3 and the most recent Far Cry games, with zombies, and you have a basic idea of what Dying Light is. It also combines all of this very well.

A surprisingly solid and entertaining game, with good gameplay mechanics and great atmosphere. Its rather light and uninvolving story gets balanced by high tension levels and a very amusing co-op. Every zombie games lover should consider playing it.

Dying Light is a cavalcade of zombie ultra-violence that's hard to put down.

High-speed parkour and gruesome zombie massacres make Dying Light a blast, even if the story's just okay.

Dying Light’s combat is at its best during melee fights due to the sheer brutality of the hand-to-hand animations, as well as the satisfying nature of hitting an attacker with the weapon you looted or crafted.

It feels as though Techland has always had this game inside of it, like it’s been waiting to bust out this technically proficient outpouring of destructive fun. Dying Light is a class apart from its typical output, and a class apart from most zombie games too. A shining beacon in a sea of grisly rotting death.

An unengaging story and forgettable characters do not live long in the memory and there’s the distinct feeling that you’ve seen a lot of what’s on offer before. That’s because you have - Dying Light is a Frankenstein’s monster, stitching together parts of other games into something new-ish. And occasionally, the stitches pull apart, revealing it’s not quite as fresh as first hoped.

Techland significantly improved every single aspect of Dead Island’s spiritual successor. On top of the graphical, story and fighting improvements, comes the excellent addition of parkour, offering new and exciting vertical gameplay possibilities.

A zombie scenario which is entirely plausible and believable and that, in itself, takes Dying Light to a higher plane, reaching toward the role-playing depth of State of Decay and the sheer nastiness of DayZ. Factor in the giant sandbox of a huge city, and the end result is a scarily immersive experience.

Dying Light keeps the best bits of Dead Island, forgets to get rid of the bad, but makes up for it with awesome parkour and a tense day/night dynamic.

This is a sure shank redemption for Techland, and a big step up from previous Dead Islands. [April 2015, p.65]

A lot of fun in small bursts, but not amount of polish, parkour or persistence can plaster over the cracks of the aging Dead Island mechanics and systems. [Issue#121, p.72]

Dying Light shares much with Dead Island, some would probably say a little too much, but it cuts away a lot of the septic flesh and binds the wounds with some new (if not entirely fresh) ideas.

There’s a lot of potential here, as well as some high-quality building blocks, but unfortunately, things didn’t fall into place perfectly. It’s technically superior to Dead Island, but running from zombies isn’t as fun as killing them over and over again. Furthermore, the game’s problematic downward climbing (or lack thereof) ends up being more frustrating than you’d think.

As someone who enjoyed both Dead Island games, warts and all, Dying Light certainly feels like a vast improvement...Unfortunately, Techland is still unable to deliver a story worth telling. I didn’t feel any emotional attachment to any of the characters, nor did I care if they ended up surviving or not.

Dying Light’s core gameplay is solid and offers a uniquely thrilling sort of fun, but for every moment you spend having a good time, you’ll spend just as many frustrated by its shortcomings.

I am rooting for Dying Light's success, even as I shake my head at its avoidable foibles. I understand it, I get it, and so I find pleasure in it even as it disappoints me, even when I land between a fence and a rocky cliff and get stuck there, even when I don't grab a ledge or pole after a jump for reasons that I can't quite understand.

As a follow up to Dead Island, Dying Light represents an improvement on the technical front, but has lost some of its knockabout charm in the process.

It’s got some great ideas and a great setting that bring new life to overplayed subject matter. The climbing and vertical navigation are in a class of their own. But Techland’s attention and focus on the undead distracts from the things that Dying Light does well, and it’s all spread far too thin.

Though not entirely soul-destroying, Dying Light will leave you feeling like you've just eaten a box of budget chocolates - unsatisfied, underwhelmed and unsure if it was worth the money. [March 2015, p.72]

With Dying Light, Techland has most certainly improved on Dead Island's melee-focused, open-world formula, but it still hasn't perfected it.

Some will love it, others will hate it, but Dying Light is an interesting experiment at least.

Dying Light parades its lack of invention and frustrates with some unrewarding missions, but it barely matters: there’s an immediate joy in exploring this compelling concrete playground of undead, explosions, and bins.