I just finished playing through the first couple of hours of Dying Light. Not bad. Well okay, some things about it aren’t great, but overall it’s competent.
Developed by Techland, the people behind Dead Island, Dying Light is an open world zombie game that focuses heavily on parkour traversal and melee weapon combat. The combat feels a lot like Dead Island, with weapons that degrade as you use them, and it feels pretty solid. The parkour, on the other hand, hasn’t impressed me. I found the parkour tutorial section frustratingly difficult to complete. Maybe it’s just because I suck at most video games (especially platformers) but I kept falling over and over again which wasn’t fun. Even once I got out into the world, the climbing and movement felt clunky and somewhat annoying. Having to try to make a jump four or five times is not fun.
So far the story seems cool, and I’ve enjoyed running around the world and fighting off zombies. Once night started to fall I felt absolutely terrified because I’ve already seen what awaits after nightfall in Dying Light (super strong, agile zombies that will rip your face off). Luckily, I was still in the opening sequence and I’m pretty sure the game was waiting for me to get to the safe zone before it became completely dark. It was still quite nerve wracking though.
I’m not sure why I’m trying to play this game. I get scared and anxious enough when night falls in games such as Skyrim (I ALWAYS sleep until daylight) so I’m sure I’ll never be able to handle the night in this game. Heck, I’ve gotten rattled enough just having zombies close in on me during daylight hours in the game. I don’t know how much more I’ll play before I get too stressed out and give up. I probably shouldn’t have purchased the digital version of the game, but I guess I’ll try to push through it.
I managed to get into a co-op game, however the player I was matched with was just standing around unresponsive so at that point I decided I had had enough and should let my heart rate return to normal. I’m interested to see how the co-op works in Dying Light as I enjoyed it quite a bit in Dead Island.
Hopefully I’ll get around to playing some more Dying Light during daylight hours (in both real world and in game). Until then, you can watch my first two hours of the game that I streamed on Twitch.
Are you playing Dying Light? What do you think of it so far? Have any advice for me? Leave a comment!