Genre: Open-world, RPG, survival, horror

Developer: Techland

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Platform:  PS4, XBox One, Microsoft Windows

From the developers of the famous Dead Island (2011), and its sequel Riptide (2013), comes another zombie-themed open-world, action role-playing survival horror titled Dying Light. It has been embedded in our memory since its big reveal at E3 2013 primarily because of the parkour element the game promised to deliver, Dying Light, one of the most anticipated titles of 2014, got delayed and later released in the first month of 2015 which was met with a bitter-sweet reception. Since GTA V is still awaiting its PC patch to be released in Nepal, I thought this would be a good distraction to keep our minds away for a few dozen hours and here is what I thought of it.

Story

After Techland parted ways with their publisher Deep Silver, with whom they had previously joined forces for Dead Island and its sequel Riptide, due to creative differences, they wanted to take full control of how Dying Light would turn out and they had talked about “extensive story,” among a bunch of other things that had  piqued my interest.

The game starts with our protagonist, Kyle Crane, who is a government agent sent to serve as a double agent in the infected city of Harram, in order to retrieve valuable data from the game’s antagonist, Kadir “Rais” Suleiman, and later ends up being a triple agent after his involvement with the two factions that have survived the vicious zombie outbreak in the city. It Might sound a little confusing, but trust me, its not.

When our character first descends into the city and gets bitten by a zombie, I had high expectations on my part as to what might unfold. But as soon as you speak to two or more characters, the game becomes very generic. First of all, the game looks and feels strikingly similar to Far Cry 3 and 4. And in first-person mode, there is hardly any difference when your character interacts with doors, boxes and dead bodies. Even the supporting characters bear alarming resemblances to the characters of Ubisoft’s franchise. Let’s move on to our antagonist, Rais. He tries too hard to look insane, shoots his own guards, delivers over-the-top dialogues, doesn’t intentionally killing the protagonist even when he clearly has the upper hand and, at one point , shouts your name out loud instead of just pulling the trigger. With all these hackneyed, bad-boy characters, Rais is just one among the depthless, frothy characters who overpopulate modern-day gaming franchises and perfectly fit into the mould of mass-produced antagonists. The story of the game, for me, was filled with banality,  facepalms, rolling of eyes and chuckles. None of the characters, including our protagonist, has any depth what soever, and the game is plagued by predictable outcomes, forced, scripted results and cringe-worthy cutscenes. The story of the game is a far cry (pun intended) from what the developers had promised it would be.

6/10

Gameplay

Without a doubt, the strongest suit of Dying Light is its gameplay, and by that I mean its parkour element. The city of Harram is so well-designed for running and climbing on stuff that it becomes a feast for gamers and props up the overall game.

You have the beautiful and chaotic city of Harram at your disposal and you can either fully exploit the free-running mechanics to hop off roofs, or take a more subtle approach and check every interior for crafting equipment and stock up on your inventory. Regardless, you will be forced to do both for hours and hours and you won’t even be complaining. The game also includes a skill system, very similar to the one in the latest installment of Far Cry; but in this case, they reflect your Power, Agility and Survival levels. The game becomes rewarding as you scavenge for crafting materials and improve your weapons—which is necessary, given that even your strongest weapon, which you invested so much in, will deteriorate and force you to start with something else all over again. The game mainly focuses on melee combat, in which you duke it out with the zombies and watch their heads fall off from their shoulders. When you finally do discover firearms, the excitement soon comes to an end as using them cannot be compared to the satisfaction that the melee combat provides.

The first-person, free-running game never fails to amuse you, though. As you skill up and unlock myriad things your character can do, the game gets even more fun. But it is not always that interesting, and as a survival horror game you will have your creepy moments, which will remind you that you are not dealing with ordinary goons and henchmen.

Dying Light also has a day-and-night cycle in the game, which brings great contrast in the gameplay. During the day, the zombies are relatively slow and fall off the roofs chasing after you, while in the night time they are faster and will chase after you and climb on buildings. Not to mention that the darkness will be a great hindrance for your parkour skills. Although there are some missions that require you to be active at night, at other times you can just stay at your safehouse and rest the night out, though you will also be missing out on double experience points. At night your character levels up much faster, along with the increase in dangers you will face, but sadly the night cycle does not last very long. Compared to the daytime, night time is over in a few moments. There are all types of zombies to run away from—the runner type, the bloaters, the giants and even some creepier versions that no other zombie game has discovered. And yes, there are kid zombies as well, in case you were wondering.

As fun as it may be, the gameplay is not original, and it becomes obvious in the first five minutes. Yes, the parkour seems new, though it can be contested (remember Mirror’s Edge?), but all the other gameplay elements have been borrowed from so many other successful big-budget titles. Overall, the game is immense fun to play and the missions and side missions will keep you happily busy for dozens of hours. Again, I cannot help myself from comparing it to Far Cry 4—a spineless story is combined with a great gameplay. A point has to be deducted for the lack of originality (lockpicking is the exact same as in Skyrim) but it still works, I suppose.

8.5/10

Graphics

The game is a visual feast for PC owners with godlike specs. But since the game is built for ‘next-gen’ ports, it pretty much does justice on consoles too. It should not come as a big surprise that it is poorly optimised on PC. Furthermore, on consoles, it compromises on the frame-rate to run at 1080p, but still, 30 fps at 1080p is not shabby at all. Even with a more than modest rig, I had to run the game at low settings to play at 30 fps and it still looked pretty crisp.

The city of Harram is a visual paradise even though it is infested by zombies. The artwork should be applauded for its intricate details, which encourage the parkour aspect. The characters in the game look gorgeous and the zombies reek of disgust, which is a job well done by the visual department.

9/10

Sound

Like the visual department, the budget of the game massively contributes to how the game will sound, and this one is no exception. From the cries of the zombies, to the sound effects heard during free-running sessions, to weapons’ sound effects and the background score, everything is very pleasurable, except the voice acting. As if the makers weren’t satisfied with poorly sketched characters, they have ruined the voice acting by making it sound rather bland. I would very much blame that on the writers than the recording artists, which brings me back to Rais and his desperate, failed attempt to sound like Vaas of Far Cry 3.

7.5/10

Verdict

Zombies, zombies everywhere, and they still have not gone stale.

Dying Light is a fine example of how most big-budget games end up nowadays: with highly glossy graphics, poorly written story, repetitive and borrowed gameplay elements of other successful titles and a huge reveal with an impressive trailer. Is Dying Light just another zombie game? Yes and no.

Not a bad game by any means, but unfortunately it will not be remembered for anything more than being a zombie game where you can climb on anything. A fun game to play if you can totally ignore the story.

7.5/10