Dying Light 2

Three years ago, Dying Light 2 was released. Offering us a follow-up to the 2015 game of the same name, placing us in a fictional, post-apocalyptic world where we attempt to survive against a rapidly improving enemy, the humble zombie.

Mix in a few humans, madness and schemes for annihilation and what you have is a beautifully flawed, yet addictive game. It was an experience that I held back on to play it in the best light possible (online multiplayer).

Why Multiplayer?

If an apocalypse of this scale ever occurred then the only way you would be able to survive would be with a group of survivors and therefore, why would you not tackle a game of this nature with a friend?

I played through the original with a close friend and in doing so experienced what I still consider the best version of the game. One in which falling to my death as I have mistimed the same jump for the 20th time did not occur. My friend would simply jump down to save me or continue on to the checkpoint where I would be brought back to life.

By playing via the multiplayer option (available post-bazaar) you can experience the story together, rather than through disjointed characters as they attempt to weave a narrative and debate the choices provided. Whilst I do no doubt that these are more for cosmetics than anything else, it does help you to move beyond this.

Choices help to drive many storylines today, as we like to believe that we have some control over the world around us, which is reflected in our gameplay. The choices within Dying Light 2 mainly boil down to the superfluous, with the main storyline choices being highlighted in a different colour. The others can all be ignored.

The choices here are quite a small part of the game but by playing through with a friend you are encouraged to dabble as you are already used to the lunacy of the quests themselves.

A great example of the lunacy is when you are tasked with finding a scarf that has gone astray (if this was real life then I would choose life over a scarf). If you were playing on your own then most likely I would have skipped the quest but with a friend, the lunacy humour is appreciated.

A Glitchy Experience

Glitches were fairly common in the original game and felt somehow magnified in this incarnation. My top examples that spring to mind are as follows:

• Seeing a zombie stuck against the door that we need to head through and being unable to shoot him
• Needing to speak to a character who has decided to suddenly walk around the encampment and we could not move forward until she was finished
• Nearing the completion of a 30-minute quest only to be teleported to the other side of the map.

Each example was frustrating but with a friend also playing, they somehow became humourous. A reason to put a smile on our faces as we endured the experience to get to the charm.

The Charm

The simple addiction that comes along with open-world exploration and zombie elimination cannot be underestimated.

To be rewarded for exploring areas that the map tells you are full of dangers, walking away with a weapon way above your station and ticking off new skill points is addictive.

In the early part of the game, the zombies seem insurmountable and so we spent the first few hours merely running around attempting to avoid them and levelling up our stamina. By doing so we could start this snipe approach of seeing an area and quickly and efficiently running into it, picking up some new equipment and leg it as fast as possible.

Blocking was a little inefficient for me and therefore I spent most of the time with projectiles and running directly into the fray, which was great fun. My friend and I tagging in and out of fights as one healed whilst the other defended, which was great and helped you forget about the game and the glitches, allowing the charm to take charge.

Would I Play It Again?

No, as Dying Light 2 suffers from what a lot of open-world games suffer from and that is attrition. You reach a point where you are more than capable of walking into a nest of zombies and you can quickly and efficiently dispatch them. Something that sounds great on paper, yet really takes the fun out of the situation.

You end up leaving the experience feeling too powerful and miss the challenge. There are still jumps to miss but somehow the game is not called jumping-light and even though a vast majority of it is spent scaling walls and running towards and away from zombies, it feels as though the enemies should scale more efficiently.

I loved the game whilst I was playing through with my friend but there is no reason to go back. With my back catalogue looking longer and longer as each month passes, there is little to draw me back to the fray.

A Final Thought

Dying Light 2 is a fabulously flawed experience. A ridiculously cliched story alongside a set of glitches that make you wonder if the game was designed this way, something that cannot remove you from the levels of fun that you can have playing through with a friend.

If I had played through by myself then I would imagine that I would have given up early on. Frustrated by the continual jumps that had been missed and glitches that prevented progress, I imagine that the me in this situation would have placed the controller on the floor (far too expensive to throw these days) and moved on.

All of this is written with the consideration that I still had a lot of fun playing the game. An experience that lasted for nearly 40 hours and is well worth the money in this sense, you simply need to consider if you are happy to put up with the glitches and if you want a solo experience or if you are looking to play with a friend.