Games worth discovering
Just keep running
18 View2025-10-04
Currently in 6 hours and the more I play, the more this feels like a question of “What the hell have they done this for?”. I’ve always been a fan of the Dying Light games, and like most, I share the opinion that the first game was better than the second. After seeing the multiple advertisements for this before playing, as well as all the Instagram reels and TikTok’s, I thought “hmm yeah this does look great!”, but I was half wrong. This game has… potential. That’s what I’d say. It takes a minute to remember that while playing at the start, you’re as weak as a kitten and every attack is similar to if you were to attempt to tickle your local drunk in the pub/bar and watching how they would react. Yet knowing that, you’re immediately thrown into the deep end and have to fight bosses right from the get go, and a couple hours in, you come across pretty much all the variants there are, and 9 time out of 10, you will die to them the minute you enter a 20m radius of them, and that’s due to having next to none of the skills, having a terrible weapon, and the fact Crane runs out of breath quicker than a morbidly obese person who is one cookie away from a heart attack. You would be thinking “I’ll just avoid these encounters until I’ve progressed if that’s the case.”, and while the idea would be great, trust me, I’d have done the same if possible. Yet you’re thrown into these encounters and they aren’t optional for progression. There’s missions where you have to go into a base and clear it and there’s usually some tank throwing rocks, or of course… the volatiles. Now… nighttime is an improvement! They’ve made this feature so intense that you find yourself hiding in the back of a crashed military truck with a UV light to stop the ugly bastards ripping you to shreds. I suggest a lengthy TikTok session while you wait. Now this will make you want to just press the ‘sleep until next morning’ button everytime you get the chance to just to avoid this feature they’ve put in that is way too difficult and won’t be played early on. Well done Techland for that by the way, unplayable features are always loved among the community. As I was saying, you wait till morning, BUT, you will come across this side quest, required to play it to level up or you can’t progress (because for some reason mission level requirements jump from 1 to 6 instantly), and lucky you, there’s no getting out of it because the side quests are SCARCE. This quest being, go in this cave, and have fun SNEAKING around volatiles in complete BLINDING DARKNESS. So it’s unplayable in night AND day.
Ok, I know it seems like there is no positive to this game, and that the only thing worth booting it up for is to hang out in a safe zone and never leave. There’s more I could talk about that brings this game down, such as the constant stress of zombie trying to kiss you every chance they get. However, there’s a lot about this game I do enjoy, and the pros CAN outweigh the cons, or at least be even with them. I’m not sure if it’s my biased opinion from this being the first game I’ve played since a 34 hospital stay, but the world is absolutely phenomenal and graphics are amazing. The immersion into this world and the capture of this overgrown dystopia is made really well, and every building and bit of foliage and weathering, is all placed really well to assist with your parkour, while making it look nice, without it being obvious it’s been placed in a certain way. Upon stepping out into the world for the first time, I was immediately blown away, and it reminds me as to why I love dystopian games more than other game types. There’s so much that needs to be done rather than just make a few buildings and streets. The town or city HAS to look like it’s been through the wars and it delivers in Castor Woods. Next up, the menus are made really well and easy enough to understand and we’re now in a world where they’re getting more and more complicated so it’s nice to see a traditional menu where everything is laid out so everyone can understand it straight away. Another feature that I appreciate is the gore. It’s not Dead Island 2 level of gore, but it’s close enough and even though pointless, it is satisfying ripping up a zombie with your level 3 hammer.
There is one last thing I’d like to mention regarding how much I like this game. Now it does keep the same formula of friendly NPC’s being absolutely useless. Once again if you’re in a mission out in the open with them, they will either teleport to where they ask you to see them, or have a cutscene where they will die (just like the elevator scene in DL2) so you don’t really get help in missions. BUT. You don’t want them to. At times. The game can be extremely cryptic and I found myself looking up guides on what the hell I’m doing circling around this mission area. But the story so far, is AMAZING. It had an excellent opening, and all the main quests I’ve done so far, have hit every beat. Enough to make me feel like, even though it is frustratingly difficult, Crane IS the main character of this story, and he HAS doing everything alone because he is, at times, such a badass. Once I’m allowed to progress, I know this pacing will be kept up through the rest of the game. This is definitely a much better story than the predecessors. As well as the story and world design being incredible, one other little thing I like and find quite humorous, is the way they portray substance abuse to be cool. The rock music that plays when you finally kill a chimera and inject yourself with a new beast skill is peak content and will definitely bring a new generation of heroin abuse from how awesome Kyle makes it look.
A full review will be made upon completion of the story, and as well an update to see if anything I’ve mentioned improves or declines by the end. So far though, it’s rough. In every way. It IS worth your time though if you’re a fan of the series, or expecting a challenge that makes you put the difficulty at its lowest until you feel comfortable.
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