Dying Light 2 Review – Shaky Launch Of Most Ambitious Title

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is already among us despite its delays and complications during its long development, especially with the tagline of “one of the most anticipated games of 2022”. Without a doubt, this set of vicissitudes would weigh down any work, and Dying Light 2 suffers too much from it despite not being a lousy title that offers the player a tremendous amount of content and hours of play. But we will put all these loads on the table and, of course, the successes.

Techland gave us a great game, with a correct story and exciting and fun mechanics in the first title. In this second, the studio set out to be more ambitious in all aspects, taking advantage of the base they liked so much. The first title received content until very recently; remember that it was released in 2015, and they plan to do the same with this second. It seemed like we’d be in for an excellent game for many years, but problems popped up all over the place.

In the first place, wanting to make a second installment larger, with deeper mechanics and ideas with too much complexity, reveals that not everything is better if it expands. Sometimes less is more, and we have the sample button in this title.

Open World Parkour And Many Bugs 

In an open world title in which parkour is the basis of the mechanics, if you find a medium-important bug that prevents you from finishing a mission, even a secondary one, it already marks all the work behind it as a failure. Yes, I know that many titles come out too broken in this aspect, but at this level, few, because not only do we find faults in mission blockages, but we also have places that you have to access that are not fully accessible despite being able to reach them or directly return you to the desk in the middle of a mission.

In addition, there are weird animations, which indicate a lack of final polish or problems with NPCs not finishing dialogues, so you are left halfway through what they tell you and, more importantly, what you have to do. I also know that this will be solved gradually, but something so serious already makes you raise your eyebrows from the moment the second failure occurs. I do not mean to say that these failures happen to everyone, but at least it has happened to me.

As a result of these failures, the narrative suffers a fatal blow because with a lack of complete dialogues and constant bugs, the magnificent experience that the first title gave us when everything worked well does not fully take off. I don’t want to go too deep into this part because if you don’t have serious flaws as I have, you will surely enjoy an exciting story if you like the genre.

We take on the role of Aiden, a pilgrim survivor of the fall who has been searching for his sister Mia for some time. We only have as information at first the name of the doctor who experimented with them for a time, a certain Waltz. These experiments were started to find a cure for the virus, but also, as always, the army was looking for other applications, to no one’s surprise. This degenerated into a primary plague, leading the survivors to form militias and subsist as best they could.

And here we have the most exciting novelty of the game, the possibility of making decisions in the city we arrived at, called Villedor, which would decide its future. Unfortunately, this is nothing more than a failed attempt to complicate the game since the stories and internal conflicts of the city are of no interest to us due to their poor quality and depth. It doesn’t matter if you provide some resources to peacekeepers, survivors, or whatever group—a misused opportunity to put the player in check at an ethical and moral level.

Leaving behind the main technical problems that generate a poor narrative experience in general, we come to the gameplay with its central mechanics. As a first note, to say that parkour, when you reach a high level in the skill tree it has, is a delight and makes you snort badly for realizing that if they had worked more on the previous aspects in which it failed, the game would be a title to take into account to be one of the best of the year. Still, it stays there, in a simple snort of anger and frustration.

When using parkour, we will have to focus on the critical point, the energy bar, which will limit the number of movements that we can make consecutively. This point is the best of the game, without any doubt.

Also, the crafting of resources and weapons modifications are more than acceptable in quantity and in the options it offers us. Here Techland has worked, and it shows, but it doesn’t seem enough to generate interest in the player beyond the first hours of play.

Another mechanic that has a skill tree in Dying Light 2 is combat. However, it remains anecdotal again since it does not change much compared to the first title, and that disappoints again, such as stealth, which is not practically effective and generates more loss of time than benefit.

But if something characterized the first Dying Light concerning others of the same genre, it was the change between day and night. And here, there is also a marked difference that, at least, does not eliminate the essence of the first and generates anxiety when the sun goes down to reach safe places and flee as soon as you can because, as I mentioned at the beginning, this Dying Light 2 it is more extensive in everything. There are many more leading and secondary missions, which force us to control the zombie nests during the day so as not to fall into unexpected ambushes.

Ray Tracing In Dying Light 2

Regarding the artistic section, Dying Light 2 is similar to the first title, with an identical aesthetic. However, it has significantly improved the landscapes and the interior finishes of the houses and buildings. There are more objects, and the textures are generally of quality.

Ray tracing also helps everything look better, both during the day, with beautiful sunsets, and at night, with the moon lighting up and creating shadows lurking around corners.

POSITIVE ASPECTS

• Good job with the Ray Tracing and lighting
• Parkour is still the best

NEGATIVE ASPECTS

• Abundant mission bugs
• Numerous game chapters
• Low-quality sound section
• Bad translation and dubbing

Hamiz Khan

Hamiz Khan is a seasoned gamer with a knack for critics and game reviews. He explores Video Games from the inside out and then pens down unbiased reviews. While away, you may find him grinding Diablo 4.