Dying Light 2 Stay Human

Review

The year is 2036, fifteen years since The Fall.  It’s a lovely evening and the sun is starting to set behind the mountains. You play as Aiden, and you’ve met an old friend Spike who you haven’t seen for years. He wants to show you something; he’s atop a rockface so you’ll have to make your way to him if you want to find out what he wants to show you. Following him will act as a tutorial where you’ll go over some basics with Spike so that you’re prepared for when you head off on your own.

You became a Pilgrim, someone who wanders the wastelands, in search of your sister, Mia. You’ve travelled thousands of miles in search of both Mia and someone called Waltz, who may have information on the whereabouts of your sister. Spike knows someone who might be able to help you find Waltz and your sister, and this person can be found in Villedor. After a chat and brewski with Spike he tells you to head to the communication tower, where you can use the radio to contact Spike’s informant.

As you progress through the game, at times you’ll have tutorial popups that will give you some information on what is about to happen. Such as Combat Basics, which will tell you how to Dodge a Powerful Attack, saving you from getting your booty slapped to the floor. Safe Zones, Perfect Blocks and Parkour Combat are just a few of the informational popups which will help you progress.

After following instructions by the informant, you eventually find yourself in the Bazaar within the city of Villedor. However, things aren't looking good for you as you start to turn. The people of Villedor aren’t the most trusting when it comes to folk they don’t know, especially if they start turning into the infected. Luckily though, a guy called Hakon rescues you from the mob that is trying to string you up.

He’ll help you from time to time throughout the game, and to begin with, he’ll help you get a biomarker that monitors the disease, letting you know if you’re going to turn or not. While in daylight or under UV lights you won’t turn, however, once darkness falls, or you enter a building where there's no lighting, then you’ll start turning after a short amount of time. You can use UV Shrooms and craft Immunity Boosters to regenerate your Immunity while you operate at night and in the darkness.

You can also craft other Boosters such as Electrical, Fire and Poison Resistance; each of the boosters can be crafted with different levels of effects. Each level effect will require a blueprint before you can craft a booster and can be upgraded to level nine. You can also craft Medicine; like the boosters, you can craft upgraded medicine once you have a blueprint upgrade. Other items which you can craft to help you are Throwing Knives, Lockpicks, Molotov Cocktails etcetera. Crafting materials can be found all over the place, in trash bins, boxes, completing quests and if you can’t find enough then you can always buy some from the merchants that you come across in Villedor.

There are also weapons and gear which can be found and brought from merchants. Both weapons and gear will have some type of stats to enhance you and your play style. Some weapons can be upgraded with Weapon Mods, and with the right blueprints can be upgraded to level nine. You can add multiple mods depending on the weapon, and you’re able to upgrade the tip, shaft and grip, although not all weapons will allow all three mods.

You will need a blueprint for a mod before you can craft a new one, but once you have one you can add it to any weapon with an upgrade slot. It will take some materials to craft a mod for a weapon and you can’t remove it once it's been applied. The weapons will break with use and sadly there’s not a way to repair your favourite weapon (or I haven’t found a way so far). You will find plenty of weapons around the place and you can also buy some from merchants.

Along with the main story quests there are plenty of side quests and challenges throughout Villedor. The main story has you looking for your sister Mia, but to do that you must find a way into the Central Loop at the heart of the city. You’re going to have to interact with the two factions: the people at the Bazaar and the Peacekeepers. Both factions have their dislikes of each other, and you will have to make decisions that will have an effect on them.

The Bazaar folks are your common folks just trying to survive day to day while the Peacekeepers are more like the police and offer protection, but at a high price. There are also small groups of bandits throughout Villedor; they are usually near something of interest or holding hostages. If you decide to take them out you can then gain some reward from the hostage or open a chest the bandits were guarding.

Around Villedor are loads of zombies all wanting to take a bite out of you and there are various different infected to keep a butcher’s on. Most of them will hide away in the buildings and out of sight which makes entering a building in daylight hours very dangerous. You are able to sneak past them as they will be half asleep, but get too close and they’ll wake up. As there are many quests that require you to enter buildings, it's probably best that you go at night when the infected have moved out, leaving only a few inside to deal with... maybe.

Moving around at night also brings out the more dangerous special infected types, such as Spitters, Howlers, Revenants. Howlers can be found mainly in the streets and you’ll want to stay away from their glare otherwise they’ll start howling at you which then riles up the other infected. This will then have every infected in the area start to chase you until you outrun or manage to hide from them, at which point the chase will end. The longer a chase continues the higher the level of the chase will become, with the highest-level chase being level four.

The longest I’ve managed to survive a chase so far was to level two or three. I tried to take out a couple howlers inside a building while trying to find some Jewellery; I was cornered in a downstairs room, but luckily I managed to shut the door before I was totally overrun. After dealing with the room full of infected, I was still trapped with the infected screaming to get inside. So, I decided to strategically hide my botty behind a counter, turning off my torch, and cowering in the darkness until the chase eventually ended, allowing me to leave in relative safety.

Sticking to the rooftops and jumping from building to building to move around the city will limit your interaction with the infected, although you can still come across plenty of infected and there could also be bandits on the rooftops. Taking out the UV Lamps of a bandit's camp will allow the infected to move in and attack the bandits, saving you a job. On the rooftop you can also find Roof Groves; here you can find resources such as honey, resin and flowers which can be used crafting consumables. If you’re lucky, there could also be a weapon for you lying about within the other resources.

Scattered around Villedor are Nightrunner Hideouts and Windmills, along with other safe havens, where you can put your head down for some beauty sleep, recharge your immunity and interact with other characters such as merchants or people who may have a challenge or quest for you.

In the options there are settings for GAME - Swap Weapon, Music, Sound Effects and Speech Volume Sliders. Streamer Mode, Audio Output, Subtitles, Subtitles Size, Speaker Colour and Subtitles Background Colour, QTE Hold Mode and Enable Hints. HUD - Health Bars (Humans and Infected), Awakening Bars, Immunity Timer, Stamina Bar, Show Dot Crosshair. VIDEO - Window Mode, Monitor, Resolution, Vertical Synchronisation, Upscaler Mode, Gamma, Film Grain Effect, Distance Blur and Colourblind Mode.

Controls - Configuration (Keyboard and Mouse, Gamepad), Invert Mouse, Mouse Sensitivity, Mouse Smoothing, Invert Paragliding Controls, Expert Grappling Hook Controls, Ammortiser Landing Assist, Auto Ledge Grab and Edge Fall Assist. Online - Game type (Single, Public, Private and Friends Only), Call for Help: Search and Rescue, Voice Chat and Voice Chat Volume Slider.

I’ve had my fair share of problems with the game. I got stuck on a rockface and had to exit the game, and upon doing so I ended up stuck on a black screen which I couldn’t get out off; I couldn't open task manager or anything else, so because of this I had to manually power down my PC.

The game crashed to desktop once and the survivor sense wouldn’t work at times, which was annoying.  Also, I quit the game and then got up to make something to eat, only to return 30 minutes later to find that while the game had closed, the game's exe was still running. I then had to open task manager to end the Dying Light 2 exe. This happened quite a few times; it stopped after one of the updates but as of yesterday it has returned.

While I have had these problems, I have still enjoyed playing the game. The graphics are great and I’ve not had any problems with game performance, running on high settings RTX enabled etcetera.

I did find the atmosphere a little lacking, especially at night, compared to the first game. In Dying Light, it had me wanting my mummy’s hand and a spare pair of boxers when I ventured out into the night. However, in Dying Light 2 I didn’t feel the need for my mummy’s hand and I could go “Commando".

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

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