Dying Light 2 Stay Human – Review

After having recently gotten our dose of Dying Light content with Dying Light: Platinum Edition for Switch, we were eagerly awaiting the sequel’s release. Now, Dying Light 2 Stay Human has finally been released nearly seven years after the original game’s release. We were curious to see how the sequel would handle things in a world that has been infested with zombies for over two decades. Even though we were quite entertained with what Dying Light 2 had to offer, the developers still need to iron out some of the kinks.

Story

Dying Light 2 Stay Human takes place twenty-two years after the events of the first game. Sadly, the virus has now spread over the entire world, and the human race has almost gone extinct. You’ll be playing as Aiden, who is what they call a Pilgrim. Pilgrims are basically drifters going from one place to another and are pretty much the only ones that still traverse the world. You’re looking for clues about your sister, as you and she got experimented on when you were children. You have reason to believe she might still be alive, and for that, you’ll need to find the doctor who performed these experiments on you. You arrive at a settlement that may offer you your next clue, but sadly you get infected, and the people are not very welcoming due to this. You barely escape death thanks to a friendly stranger, and soon you find yourself aiding the settlement, as well as the peacekeepers who try to keep everyone in tow.

The story is brought in an interesting way, mostly via dialogues. There are some in-game cutscenes here and there, but the meat of the story is delivered by talking to NPCs. Some dialogue choices are optional, but they do flesh out the story more and give you some more information about the world as well.

Graphics

For our review, we tried out the PS5 version of the game, and we were actually quite underwhelmed by the graphical prowess of the game. Even though at a distance everything looks quite good, things get a bit muddy when inspecting things more closely. We noticed that a lot of character models get reused, both for the undead as well as the base character. Other than that, standard assets get recycled over and over, so much even that some locations are literal copy-pasted versions of one another.

Sound

The sound design of the game is quite good. The soundtrack is interesting and picks up the pace when the game gets a bit more hectic. The OST never really tires and the sometimes subtle background tunes add a lot to the overall atmosphere of the game. Dying Light 2 also contains a lot of voiced dialogues, and for the most part, this is handled quite well. Some accents, however, feel a bit over the top or even too forced at times and this does take away a bit from the overall quality of the dialogues.

Gameplay

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a fairly straightforward Action-RPG that offers more of the same content we’ve seen in similar games that came out during the last few years. This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, it’s up to you if you just want to follow the main quests and plow through the story, or you can also explore the world around you. Exploring is rewarding as you get stronger by doing so, collect new items, and so on. The latter is in many ways the most fun way to eventually progress through the story more easily. Unlike the first game, however, you won’t be able to run around in the dark for too long, as you’re also infected, and thus you’ll turn into one of the undead when left in the dark for too long.

Truth be told, the gameplay loop is quite easy to explain. You’ll be able to either opt for a safe approach, by sticking to the rooftops and only fight by using stealthy techniques, or you can just grind, power up and beat your way through hordes of zombies. As you go, new weapons will unlock, as well as new skills and other passive upgrades. It’s fun to see progress and we did quite enjoy simply going out to crack some skulls to loot some supplies. The map has a lot of side-content to offer, where you unlock new items and gear by simply exploring the structures around you.

Combat, especially at the beginning of the game, feels very clunky. We do find it hard to gauge the distance between Aiden and his enemies, and it feels as if there is some input lag when using certain attacks. More than often a zombie would be able to hit us before we were able to hit them with our swing. The hitboxes feel a bit off due to this, and we find that melee combat feels very clunky because of the aforementioned issues. Nonetheless, it’s very satisfying seeing a zombie (or bandit) being smacked to bits when dealing a final blow.

Even though we quite enjoyed the overall experience, we did notice loads of bugs, ranging from clipping issues, NPCs spawning in hazardous zones only to immediately die upon spawning, to our character not grabbing ledges, which all detracted from the overall fun to be had. The climbing segments felt very tedious at the start of the game, as Aiden’s stamina would run out after mere seconds of climbing. This struck us as odd for a Pilgrim who has been roaming the world for years. You’d expect him to be a bit more trained by then.

Conclusion

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a fun sequel, and we loved the worldbuilding as a whole. The game feels like a good continuation of the franchise, and we do hope more gets done with the Dying Light franchise. Even though the game doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, the gameplay loop is entertaining and we did very much enjoy playing through the story, as well as just booting up the game to break some undead skulls. That being said, the game does need a fair number of bug fixes, and a graphical update for the PlayStation 5 version would also do wonders. Those who enjoyed the first game will certainly enjoy this one as well, and this one also provides a great entry point for newcomers.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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