Dying Light: My thought capsule in to Harran's infected adventure

By Gemma @Juicy Game Reviews

Dying Light PS4 & Xbox One: Let's jump right in

As a fan of anything Zombie related I was full of hope for Dying Light; a survival horror game developed by Techland and casually fucked up by Warner Bros in publishing the physical copies here in Europe. A month after the digital release (and hard copy release in North America) I finally got my copy. I could talk all day about how cool the free running mechanics of Dying Light feel or how quarantined city of Harran looks bizarrely beautiful but I'm not. Dying made me feel numerous things as I played through the campaign. Here are my most prominent thoughts of Dying Light.

Dying Light: Harran is not a place for children to wander

I played Dying Light wanting to feel scared. I was not interested in the story. In fact I skipped most cut scenes because I wanted to get down to business. Call me old fashioned but I've always felt that way about the Zombie survival horror games. In Dying Light, I felt that Techland placed too much emphasis on the story and not enough on the gameplay as I would have liked to see more development around the parkour element. At times it seemed that this was the most important weapon I had. I had a recurring question running through my head as I battled through the hoards of undead: What do I like about Dying Light? My answer was simple: I like Zombie games. There was nothing unique about Techland's game. It didn't break any ground which is a shame. I wanted groundbreaking. I wanted a new feel. I wanted a sleek level up system instead of a clunky looking one. I wanted more weapons that felt like they were absolutely deadly as opposed to rusty, boring wrench's. I got an average game that I played out of love for the series. A lot of you guys have asked me what I liked so I hope this provides some clarity. 

Dying Light: The drab dullness of Harran awaits us

Now I'm not hating on Dying Light. I really enjoyed the open world, parkour adventure. Some of my favourite aspects were at night. The city feels completely different and ironically comes to life with the dead. My heart was pounding when during chases and it would pound harder when I ran in to a dead end! I will replay Dying Light  because there's always a new route to take. It ends there though. Dying Light had too much missing for me to feel absolutely satisfied. During a chase, Crane would often talk to another character over his radio although his voice would not sound any different despite him running at full speed. Surely he's have been out of breath?! Come on Techland! 

Dying Light may be the perfect summary of a genre that is losing it's vibrancy. For me, it's a tight 7 out of 10. What do you guys think? Drop me a comment below or head over to my Facebook page. If that's not your thing then you can subscribe to my Youtube channel (shhh it's free).  

Gemma aka Juicy Game Reviews