Dying Light
Platform: PC, Linux, PS4, Xbox One
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Author: K.D.
Okay, this game takes some of my favourite elements from different games and fuses it into a dreamy action survival horror game. Dying Light embraces the craziness of Left 4 Dead baddies, the free-run ability from Mirror’s Edge, a Legend of Zelda-esque open-world, and so much more! So let’s jump right in.
The main character, Kyle Crane, gets sent into the city of Harran to follow a bad mamma-jamma who stole sensitive data from the Global Relief Effort (GRE) after the zombie breakout. Upon entering Harran, Crane is attacked and bitten by an infected, and he’s rescued by a group of survivors. He does some gopher quests for them, where he meets the illustrious Dr. Zere who is working towards a cure for the virus. After more search and survive missions, Zere gets kidnapped by local baddie Rais (who is really Suleiman, the target Crane was sent for) and Crane decides to go rescue him. There are a lot of omitted details in this story, only because it’s actually pretty interesting and I don’t want to spoil it for any enthusiastic readers!
The gameplay is fantastic; there’s engaging, realistic first-person vision during movement! You know how when you spin out with something heavy in your hand and sometimes your body swings faster than the object your spinning? THAT HAPPENS! Respecting physics is always a good thing. The parkour is a heavily stressed element of gameplay because it’s your ticket in and out of trouble. And when trouble hits, sometimes you’re best off getting out of its way. It’s a pretty intuitive system once you get around the first few missions, which are pretty much tests in getting used to mobility. Also, the day/night mechanic is integral to the game. Basically, during the day, zombies are shambling corpses. At night, they turn into 28 Days Later zombies, coming at you full force—especially when they swarm. Seriously, get inside, get safe, and wait till daylight.
The graphics for Dying Light are just stunning, I could honestly climb the Tower and just look out at the Harran and be content with the immense amount of detail in the visual display. Also, PC version rocks a 60-fps, while next-gen consoles are confined to a 30-fps. Developers ensure us that it’s for the best, having a stable rock-solid framerate rather than a potential variable framerate, and they’re not wrong. The music is also worth noting. (Aha, see what I did there? It’s punny!) Excellent soundscape to help accentuate the difference between day and night, and the voice acting is pretty good. The music for the most part is minimalistic, but it really captures zombie-apocalypse mood (whatever that means).
All in all, this game has a pretty involved storyline, has zombies, has parkour, has consistent danger, and has tons to explore. So get to it. What’re you waiting for, the zombie apocalypse?
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