I’m honestly amazed Dying Light 2 emerged from development hell intact. I’m even more surprised it includes most of the promised features and (mostly) runs well out the gate. Unfortunately, it’s a case of two steps forward and one step back. With the shift to a larger, more conventional open-world structure - with all the repetition and pacing issues that brings - it loses some of its identity. As a result, Dying Light 2 is a far more playable game than its predecessor, but also one that no longer feels as unique.

Techland has never been big on complex or well-told stories, but Dying Light 2 tries to break that trend with variable success. The writers must have access to a whole encyclopaedia of cliches, from which they cobbled together background events, faction ideologies, and character archetypes. Nefarious scientists, weaponized viruses, experimentation on children, suppressed memories, ruthless leaders, allies with a dark past - you name it, you’ll find it somewhere in Dying Light 2’s narrative. There are some spoiler-ish examples I’ll avoid, but they’ll have you rolling your eyes when it happens.

Techland has never been big on complex or well-told stories, but Dying Light 2 tries to break that trend with variable success.

You take control of Aiden, a mistrusted “pilgrim” - think post-apocalyptic courier of messages, goods, and people - arriving in “The City” (nee Villador) on the hunt for his sister. The pair were kidnapped, along with hundreds of other children, for dubious vaccine research and separated during the lab fire that allowed them to escape. Aiden discovers the former head scientist has emerged in The City, acquires a rare Global Relief Effort (GRE) electronic key that everyone would kill for, and needs to work with several factions and free agents to get close to Waltz’ stronghold. Complicating matters is that everyone in The City - including Aiden - are infected with the latest strain of the Harran virus and need to stay near UV lights at night to avoid turning. It’s an important narrative element but also a gameplay consideration when out at night or exploring indoors.


Damnable motion-blur makes it hard to capture what is probably the single most satisfying element of the game - flying kicks. I sent hundreds of infected and bandits hurtling to their doom over 40-hours - each and every kick providing a sadistic thrill.

Narrative progression operates as you’d expect from an open-world game: a series of shorter investigation or preparation-focused missions, before a lengthy and multi-phase mission that’ll take you through unique locations and advance the story significantly. Adding weight to your actions - and providing an incentive to replay the story - Dying Light 2 introduces branching outcomes to both its story- and side-quests. For story quests, this often means supporting one of the factions or not getting involved at all.

For side-quests resolutions, it might simply change how characters greet you in passing. These choices allow you to shape the state of the city in the ending and provide gameplay benefits, but you still play through most of the same story missions. There are minor variations based on your current alliances but only a handful of faction-specific missions at the midpoint and before the finale. About half the side-quests - typically those found in major settlements - are time-sensitive; optional but fleshed out, with links to current events and secondary characters. They only appear when relevant, may lead to later side-quests, but also disappear if you ignore them and advance the plot so as not to clutter your journal.

If you’re short on time, the story quests take you all over the city, offer plenty of player-choice moments, and are packed with the best set pieces.

Unfortunately, the abundance of these side-quests, coupled with the usual array of open-world filler, have the potential to lead you on wild tangents and distract you for hours. Sure, both Dead Island games and Dying Light featured open-ish zones and optional side-quests but they never overshadowed the story missions to the same degree. Another issue with the narrative - albeit not uncommon in many recent games - is the overwritten dialogue. Aiden himself is the most grounded and likeable, but I soon found myself skipping throwaway NPC lines to get to the point.

For what is ostensibly an action game about kicking zombies and bandits off buildings, there is an inordinate amount of dialogue of wildly variable quality. For every believable and heartfelt exchange that explains your allies motivations, there’s a character that’ll dole out their life story for several minutes before giving a simple fetch quest. If you’re short on time, the story quests take you all over the city, offer plenty of player-choice moments, and are packed with the best set pieces.


There are multiple endings based on your choices, but don’t get too hung up on the faction system. The choices you make during the story quests are more important.

If the jankiness of Techland’s prior games put you off, you’ll be happy to know running, climbing, jumping, and swinging an electrified axe - often all as part of the same encounter - feels incredibly smooth in Dying Light 2. It’s a combination of Aiden’s enhanced move-set (even before upgrades), smoother animations, and carefully crafted environments with more ways to get around. That’s not to say you won’t miss some ledges and plummet to your doom, swing a blade right past enemies, or sit wiggling around trying to get an interaction prompt to appear, but it happens with way less frequency. It feels incredibly empowering to simply move about so freely and, given you only access to a limited fast-travel system from the halfway point, an essential refinement.

Other gameplay elements - think scavenging for weapons and resources, the crafting and modding systems, and skill tree upgrades - all function similarly to the prior game but have been expanded. You’ll still want to prioritise hunting for high-tier weapons and modding them with elemental effects, but you know have six gear slots that can be filled with class-themed gear. As an example, “Tank” gear bolsters defence and melee damage, “Medic” gear improves healing and XP gain, while “Ranger” gear improves stealth and ranged damage.

If the jankiness of Techland’s prior games put you off, you’ll be happy to know running, climbing, jumping, and swinging an electrified axe - often all as part of the same encounter - feels incredibly smooth…

It’s worth reiterating just how impressive Dying Light’s blend of first-person parkour brutal melee combat is. Once you dip into the extensive skill tree - split between combat and parkour moves, with independent XP gain based on your actions - you swiftly unlock new abilities that turn Aiden into a graceful powerhouse. Simply wailing away on the infected with a high-tier flaming weapon remains viable, but you’d be missing the thrill of dropping from on high to crush the head of an infected, launching off a nearby enemy into a flying kick that sends another off a ledge, then perfectly dodging an attack to follow up with a critical hit. For ranged fans, the “modern dark age” premise means you’re limited to throwing knives and bows that are useful for the stealth kills and picking off distant archers, but they never dominate combat as firearms did in the prior game.


Aiden is competent from the get-go but collecting inhibitors and investing skill points makes you progressively faster and stronger. That said, there’s always a path forward in the story quests, even if you chose not to upgrade any skills.

Dying Light 2’s open-world structure makes it easier than ever to get distracted, with a densely-packed assortment of activities and dynamic events - think clearing bandit camps, night-time looting runs, parkour challenges, saving survivors, and killing an inordinate number of bandits just milling around locked chests. Given the expanded scope of the world, it’s advisable to prioritise unlocking safe houses and establishing new settlements - especially given the temperamental autosave system and unpredictable respawn system (at least the scripted story missions have proper checkpoints). Power substations and water towers are parkour- and puzzle-centric locations that, once completed, can be assigned to either the Survivors or Peacekeepers, populating the district with survivor settlements and providing gameplay benefits like zip lines and landing pads, or a myriad of traps to aid in combat.

It’s only once you emerge into the sprawling “Central Loop” district, with its densely-packed multistorey buildings and access to a paraglider, that it truly feels like a sequel.

For the sake of narrative pacing, and not burning yourself out on the gameplay loop, you’d do well to ignore most activities not related to the faction system and focus on those that reward “inhibitors” - injectables that upgrade your stamina, health, and immunity level. For completionists that like to clear district by district, just be aware the opening section in “Old Villador” feels like an extended tutorial - despite half the story missions taking place there. You could spend upwards of 25-hours tackling everything on offer, but the limited verticality and simplistic layout leave it feeling too much like Harran. It’s only once you emerge into the sprawling “Central Loop” district, with its densely-packed multistorey buildings and access to a paraglider, that it truly feels like a sequel.


The ridiculous, overengineered weapon-modification system returns for dishing out elemental death to humans and infected alike.

The downside to this dense and bustling environment is that much of the tension and potential for emergent scares is lost. Pushing out from the tower refuge in Dying Light was always a nerve-wracking and exhilarating affair, as you slowly mapped out safe routes between the tower and distant safe houses. In Dying Light 2, managing your immunity level in the dark should have added to the tension but boosters are easy to craft and there’s always a nearby UV light source.

Coupled with the level and equipment design that ensures you can always travel in any direction, The City - despite being significantly larger in area than Harran - never feels as vast, real, or as dangerous as Harran. The scripted sequences in the story missions and a few standout activities - like raiding old GRE research facilities for inhibitors before volatiles return at sunrise - do all the heavy lifting.

The downside to this dense and bustling environment is that much of the tension and potential for emergent scares is lost.

If you’re someone that enjoys immersing themselves in a game world, you’ll come to hate the near-constant flurry of map markers that brings the experience uncomfortably close to Ubisoft-style busywork - aiming to always push short and repetitive tasks on the player, rather than allow for organic exploration and discovery. The biggest offenders are the dynamic events as you can’t run more than 50m without hearing the ping of a new event and, should you ignore it, you can expect another ping as soon as you’re out of range. It’s an obnoxious, intrusive design and I’ve seen “encounter failed” pop up more times than I care for while busy scavenging or tackling a horde of infected. It’s a shame as, despite my efforts to focus on only key activities and the story quests, I still reached the Central Loop - with its awe-inspiring scale and liberating traversal options - only to find myself staring at the massive iconless map thinking - “here we go again”.


I was legitimately excited to explore every corner of The City but dreaded the inevitable flood of icons and nagging objective markers.

Now Dying Light 2 is a cross-generation project - with low-poly objects and low-resolution textures found throughout - but the sheer scale and density of the environments, coupled with great lighting and fluid animation work, always impress. The City is sprawling and unexpectedly diverse, with more unique story locations than its predecessor, decent variety when it comes to the side-quest quest locations, and always provides beautiful vistas (though distant, non-playable areas can look simplistic).

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the spaces between that draw from a much smaller pool of assets. You’re usually hurtling through the city too fast to notice the identical rooftop shelters and generic interiors (or too busy kicking enemies off ledges) but completionists will find this noticeable. For those considering the last-gen release, Dying Light 2 offers solid performance on all platforms but expect a hit to resolution and visual features.

…the sheer scale and density of the environments, coupled with great lighting and fluid animation work, always impress.

Facial animations during conversations aren’t great but the voice-acting is solid, even when the quirkier characters are hamming it up. Combat audio, especially the slow-mo “woosh” when performing a perfect block or dodge, is immensely satisfying. Following up with an attack that removes limbs, or slamming feet first into an enemy and sending them flying, always sounds great. The soundtrack, by accomplished composer Olivier Derivière, is a quality mix of orchestral pieces and electronic beats - often dynamically changing as you get closer to an objective or when night falls. It’s just a shame I only appreciated it during quieter moments as the sound mix often drowns it out.


The scale of The City is impressive and I often found myself stopping to take in the view, especially at sunrise and sunset.

Unfortunately, some bugs still need patching despite a day-one and follow-up patch. I’ve experienced nothing game-breaking but animations can bug out while mantling some ledges, one side-quest reappeared every time I loaded my save, and - most annoyingly - the audio would sometimes crackle and drop, forcing me to restart the game.

Dying Light 2 is a tough game to assign a score. On one hand, it’s an objectively good game - a sequel with expanded and refined mechanics that provides a distinctly more-ish experience. There’s always something to do, the first-person parkour and combat remain top-class, and the story missions offer both memorable locations and set-pieces. On the other hand, the bulk of the gameplay on offer feels derivative. It’s hard to immerse yourself in the world when you’re engaged in methodical icon-clearing. That said, if you enjoyed the first game, Dying Light 2 is still easy enough to recommend for the lengthy string of story quests (just avoid getting drawn into a cycle of open-world busywork). If open-world games are your thing, then you’ll find no shortage of engaging busywork as you systematically claim each district for the surviving factions.



* Review code provided by Techland | Reviewed on Xbox Series S