Apologies. I can’t actually deal with
any of that right now. Somewhere in
the city another bandit is standing
too close to the edge of another
rooftop and he needs booting off it.
And reaching that rooftop is just as
much fun as kicking
someone off it.
To get there I slide
down ziplines and
bounce off jump-pads,
swing like Spider-Man
from the rope of my
grappling hook, sail
through the air with
my fold-up paraglider- or I just climb, clamber, wall-run
and ledge-grab my way there. Dying
Light 2 is a huge and exhilarating
playground for crunchy, kinetic,
two-footed combat and satisfying
first-person parkour. It doesn’t start
out like that – there’s a few long
hours before the game really opens
up and gets fun, and there’s a lot of
not-so-great storytelling along the
way. But it’s worth it.
PILGRIM-DARK
Welcome to the European city of
Villedor, a sprawling mess of
decaying and crumbling buildings
with scores of zombies shambling
through the streets and pockets of
survivors camped out
in barricaded safe
zones. As Aiden, a
travelling do-gooder
(called a pilgrim), I’ve
arrived in search of my
long-lost sister, Mia,
following several
convenient flashbacks
that show we were the
victims of medical experiments as
children before being separated. After
discovering a vaccine for the original
zombie virus, scientists continued
messing around until they goofed
big-time and unleashed an even
deadlier version of the disease upon
the world. One particularly evil
scientist, a man named Waltz, may
hold the key to finding my long-lost
sister and my long-delayed revenge.To find Waltz, I need to ingratiate
myself with the locals, who are
distrustful of outsiders and only give
out information in exchange for
favours, though thankfully those
favours often involve kicking jerks off
rooftops. There are two main factions
in Villedor – the Survivors, a grubby
yet hearty clan who build little farms
and safe zones on the rooftops, and
the Peacekeepers, who dress in blue
combat gear and act like the cops of
the apocalypse. When Aiden arrives
the two groups are at odds owing to
the recent unsolved murder of a
Peacekeeper commander, and it’s not
long before Aiden’s eager-to-help
attitude gets him wrapped up in the
drama between the factions.
I’m not yet a dynamo of flying
kicks and fluid parkour when I arrive
in Villedor. I’m a complete klutz, a
disgrace to the art of climbing walls
and running on rooftops. The first
few hours of Dying Light 2’s feel
shaky, slow, and clumsy – I miss my
jumps frequently, hesitate at the
ledge of every building before
leaping, frequently run out of stamina
while climbing and hammer away at
zombies with ineffectual weapons
like table legs and baseball bats.
Progression is slow: every enemy I
kill and wall I climb sends a trickle of
combat and parkour XP into my
bank, and only once I’ve levelled up
those talents am I given a single point
to unlock a new move from the two
skill trees available.FEET FIRST
Along with my beloved flying
two-footed kick, there’s more fun
foot-related skills: a vault kick, which
lets me use a stunned foe as a
springboard to launch myself,
boots-first, into his comrade (and if
my kick stuns him I can simply turn
around and springboard back to
deliver another kick to the first guy).
An air kick lets me target a foe from
above, leap down, and drive my foot
into his face in glorious slow motion.
There’s a satisfying headstomp forI
land a flying kick into a bandit and send him screaming off the edge
of a roof and onto the zombie-filled streets below. In Dying Light 2
this has become my singular goal: kick dudes off roofs. The city is
in peril, I have a half-dozen unfinished sidequests in my journal,
and my map is littered with icons imploring me to scavenge
resources, discover new locations and undertake parkour challenges.NIGHT CITY
DYING LIGHT 2 is bigger and better than the original
By Christopher LivingstonA huge
playground for
crunchy,
kinetic, two-
footed combatNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
A first-person open
world parkour action
game set in the zombie
apocalypse
EXPECT TO PAY
£55
DEVELOPER
Techland
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
RTX 2080, Intel
i7-9700K , 16GB RAM
MULTIPLAYER
Co-op
LINK
dl2.dyinglight
game.comTIME CRIMES
How I spend
time in
cutscenes18%
FORGETTING
In cutscenes Aiden
often forgets about
zombies. What’s
that noise? It’s a
zombie, Aiden.17%
G E T T I N G
KNOCKED OUT
And waking up
somewhere else.10%
LISTENING
The people have
lots to say, and I’m
interested. Sort of.35%
TAPPING
I am no longer
interested.
Tapping the
spacebar to skip.20%
TAKING
PUNCHES
A lot of people
punch Aiden in
cutscenes. A lot.Dying Light 2
REVIEW