Published , by Lexi Luddy
Published , by Lexi Luddy
The first Dying Light holds a special place in many people’s hearts. Its unique blend of first-person parkour and improvisational melee combat made it stand out at the start of the last console generation. That, paired with a shockingly well-written and performed story, turned Dying Light into a low-key sleeper hit as it reached a staggering 20 million units sold by 2022.
While Dying Light 2 ratched up its open-world ambition with a 50-hour branching RPG narrative, it never really hit the highs of that first game, especially within the franchise’s community that had kept the first game in Steam’s most-played games years after launch. Now, two years after the release of the second game, Dying Light: The Beast is bringing the series back to its more linear and focused roots in the hopes of reigniting the community love of that first game.
This standalone adventure, which originally started life as DLC for Dying Light 2, takes place 13 years after the events of the first game’s The Following DLC. This places The Beast well before the 2036 setting of Dying Light 2 and also leaves us with lots of questions about how Kyle could have survived his two (equally lethal) fates at the end of that DLC. This is an unexplored time in the series after the virus has spread out of the city of Harran, but doesn’t seem to have destroyed all traditional organized military institutions (if those well-kept military uniforms in the teaser are anything to go by).
While the game is built on the bones of Dying Light 2 (and will be free to anyone who bought that game’s season pass), the devs at Techland are adamant this is very much its own thing and during our demo were keen to highlight how Castoor Woods is a more condenses handcrafted rural area that is totally distinct from Harran or Villdor.
What was most apparent in the short demo shown to us was the little shifts in gameplay that this game focuses on. During the 13 years between games, Kyle was subject to countless experiments and, as a result, has several superhuman abilities available to him. While the team didn't get into details, it was noticeable that even during exploration and parkour, Kyle could make bounding jumps greatly exceeding those of the first game. Hopefully, this won’t take the methodical fun out of exploration, but it's hard to deny that it was cool to see Kyle hop from rooftop to rooftop with ease.
Combat also seems to have been refocused in a major way. Almost all of the combat encounters we were shown were focused on gunplay. The melee survival crafting of the previous games has always been such a focus of these games that guns have often felt like an afterthought, but here, we saw Kyle stealthy take out plenty of human enemies before getting into a chaotic gunfight full of shotguns and assault rifles which all looked satisfying chunky and cacophonous. However, this feels like a calculated choice as the demo ended with a boss fight against an extra ugly infected enemy where Kyle became the beast at which point all weaponry was tossed aside in favor of using his superhuman abilities to dodge cars being through at him, block fierce attacks and let out toss boulders of his own.
Overall, Dying Light: The Beast looks like an ambitious synthesis of what made the first game great and new ideas all build on the technical foundation of Dying Light 2. With a more authored and cinematic narrative, there is plenty of room for Techland to stretch its storytelling muscles next year.
This preview is based on an early demo shown at Gamescom 2024. The final product is subject to change.