Dying Light 2, the long-awaited action zombie game, was released on February 4th.
The game faced many problems during its production and had to be delayed several times. So is Dying Light 2 a game worth playing? After playing the game for about 50 hours, I was able to finish it along with most of the activities and side quests it offered. In this review article, I will share my opinion about Dying Light 2.
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Atmosphere and Story
I regret to say that the the atmosphere provided in the Dying Light 2 is overshadowed by its lack luster story.
The zombie epidemic in Harran (the main story of Dying Light 1) ended with the death of all the citizens of the city. However, Global Relief Effort (GRE) developed a vaccine for the “Harran Virus” (THV) that put an end to the threat of the zombie epidemic. Unfortunately, despite a promise to stop all research on THV, GRE continued to secretly experiment on the virus. In 2021, a mutated variant of THV escapes a GRE lab and starts a second pandemic that spreads even faster than the first. The vaccine was ineffective against the newer version of THV, but its effects could be suppressed by ultraviolet light.
So, the game takes place fifteen years from now, in 2036. Most of the world’s population has been destroyed, with human civilization in a handful of scattered settlements. The story takes place in the fictional European city of Villedor. The character we play, Aiden Caldwell, is a Pilgrim who is brave enough to travel between human settlements. He decides to go to Villedor in search of his missing sister Mia, and there our game begins.
The game is actually off to a strong start. However, while it was fun to get to know the characters and the world for the first few hours, the mediocre dialogues and simple progression of the story took my enjoyment out of the game. I played the whole game with a friend in co-op. After a certain point, the serious story turned into comedy because of the mediocrity of the story and the dialogues. This amused us, but it’s clear the developers of the game didn’t plan for this.
Coming to the atmosphere, the game is really awesome in this respect. The city, which has been infested with zombies for 10 years, looks very realistic. The city itself is divided into two large parts. At first you start a little outside the city center. This place is ideal for you to learn the parkour mechanics of the game because the buildings are not that tall. The city center, on the other hand, is a huge place and turns the game into a zombie version of Mirror’s Edge. In other words, Dying Light 2 offers an absolutely believable atmosphere.
Gameplay
Dying Light 2 is almost the same as the first game in terms of gameplay. With a big caveat: the firearms found in the first game are not available in this one. This forces the game to be melee centered. It goes on like this until you find the bows. It’s hard to play the game using only your weapon’s basic attack. The game is basically made for parkour and acrobatic moves.
The skills in the game are divided into two: parkour and combat skills. To increase these abilities, you need to do specific moves like Skyrim. Apart from that, you can increase the health and stamina values with the inhibitors in the game. As these values increase, the abilities you can unlock also expand.
It is almost mandatory to use the acrobatic moves that the game offers you in high-level difficulties. This is okay as it also makes the game more fun. However, most of the skills in Dying Light 2 are just basic movements sets that were available from the start in Dying Light 1. This may annoy some players.
Apart from that, the biggest problem of the game is that the game becomes extremely easy once you gain access to bows. Once you have them, you can now delete Dying Light 2, because it turns the game into a child’s toy. I hope this issue will be fixed in future updates, but they are very cheap to use right now and because they do high damage they brake the whole balance of the game.
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Gaming Activities and Other Systems
As an open world game, Dying Light 2 has many different activities. Side stories aside, the activities of the game are based on either combat mechanics or parkour. Since parkour in the game is extremely fun, I focused on these more.
In Dying Light 2, there are 2 different factions related to the story, these are peacekeepers and survivors. In the game, you can give different regions to one of these two groups. Doing this gives you different bonuses. For example, the 4th bonus of peacekeepers gives you the most powerful item of the game: the crossbow. You can basically delete the game once you receive it. If I wasn’t playing with my friend, I would have deleted the game 30 minutes after I got this item.
The game also has full blown RPG mechanics. You can build close or long range builds with the armors you find. The system they set up looks good on paper, but the OP bows in the game force you to wear items that allow you to increase long-range damage. Of course, you can limit yourself by not using bows, but I’m someone who likes to wear the strongest items the game has to offer. If the game isn’t balanced in this respect, it’s entirely the developer’s fault.
Apart from that, the activities offered by the side missions may vary. Some of them are the same and can really bore you, but most of them are fun.
Just like the 1st game, Dying Light 2 also has a detailed crafting system. You can customize your weapons by attaching different parts. To do this, you need to find different items in the game world and upgrade them with the zombie parts. This system was a lot of fun at the beginning of the game, but again it was wasted because of the bows. The thing is, you don’t need to upgrade the bows, and the crossbow is an item that levels up with you. This means that you can completely bypass the game’s crafting system.
As another example, the parachute and the grappling hook that you acquire in the middle of the game allows you to bypass all the parkour systems of the game. After hours of unlocking your parkour skills this really upset me.
Conclusion
Dying Light 2 was, for me, an average game in the truest sense of the word. The awesome parkour and detailed crafting systems in the game are completely wasted due to some OP items. Likewise, the beautiful atmosphere offered by the game cannot stand out due to the mediocrity of the story and the dialogues. If you are not a zombie fan, definitely do not buy Dying Light 2 at the full price. Maybe the game’s systems may change in the future, but it is impossible to fix the story. So even when you buy the game, don’t play it alone.
