The open-world genre has seen its fair share of hits over the last few years, and some have obviously left a lasting mark on gamers. That could be attributed to a wide array of reasons, ranging from a great story to unique mechanics and much more. Developer Techland’s Dying Light definitely belongs to this very category of games, and it continues to be held in high regard for more than 10 years since its release.
Dying Light was released back in January 2015 to some great reviews, but it was not just a great zombie game that was just about slashing through hordes of zombies – it was a greater experience that encompassed elements of traversal, exploration, and character progression in a way that wasn’t really done before.
Creating something that’s just as fun to interact with on a granular level, and binding those mechanics with other mechanics that are about working towards a larger goal can be a daunting task for most developers – and Techland’s graceful execution of these elements is what makes it stand out from contemporaries. Dying Light is an open-world game first and foremost, and it’s tapestry of many mechanics excellently balance player engagement on both on a moment-to-moment basis and at a macro scale. But how does it achieve that exactly?
Of course, the biggest part of crafting that moment-to-moment fun has to be the parkour system. Open-world games usually struggle to answer the question of how to make the simple act of traversing from point A to point B innately fun, but Dying Light’s parkour system is a shining example of how to do just that. Techland takes cues from the right places like Mirror’s Edge, and crafts a parkour system that’s just as much an engaging way of traversal as it is a way of expressing yourself through the movements.
Just getting from point A to point B is equivalent to solving a puzzle as you carefully chart your way across ledges and rooftops. Unlike Mirror’s Edge or Uncharted, parkour isn’t just about holding a set of buttons and watching the protagonist gracefully scale up large buildings, Dying Light makes parkour intentional and prone to errors – so you gradually get better at getting across these spaces through the practice of these mechanics. Furthermore, using your tools and gaining knowledge about the layout of the world also helps in uncovering quicker routes – which yields a tangible improvement in the moment-to-moment gameplay.
Techland had prior experience working on the original Dead Island, a game that can be considered as a base of what makes Dying Light so special. Dead Island’s melee-based combat system was fun, functional, and fluid and those mechanics would neatly translate over to the developer’s bigger project. It’s not without its fair share of rough edges, but in broad strokes – Dying Light does create a convincing system that’s really fun to engage with.
On the surface level, it’s a rather simple act where you just get a couple of attack types and you have to mix and match to string together attacks and bring down zombies one after another. But what adds depth to this system are the elements that surround it, starting with the weapons. You can find different kinds of weapons, ranging from blunt baseball bats to sharp knives, and more. Each of these weapons has different animations that add more variety. There’s also weapon durability which depletes with each hit you land, so that adds a layer of survival strategy to your acts of offense.
Crafting weapons is also a standout feature that helps even the odds against the frustrations that might stem from a durability system. You can find resources that are found scattered throughout the world and use them to create different sorts of weapons, and you can also use additional elements to enchant these weapons like electricity which in turn help in dealing more damage to your enemies. It’s an important element of the combat system, and ensuring appropriate resources will help increase your survival chances in long encounters.
While melee weapons are the primary focus in Dying Light, you also get access to ranged weaponry late in the game. Pistols and assault rifles can be used to pop heads from afar, but the noise generated from firing these weapons will attract more zombies to your area which prevents it from becoming a cheap crutch to mow down hordes of enemies with relative ease. It’s a thoughtful design decision that adds a new option for offense but keeps the focus on the melee combat which encourages you to interact with the game in a rather specific way.
These elements come together to create something that just works beautifully. You might find yourself landing amidst a bunch of zombies while traversing from point A to point B, and you would start fighting a few of them to create an opening to escape because engaging in pointless combat would just deplete your resources which might be better utilized somewhere else.
Then there’s the open world, which is absolutely the beating heart of any game of this ilk. Techland has done a great job of creating a virtual world that’s as functional as it is beautiful to look at. The city has its own beauty, the glimpses of which can be seen amidst the horrors of the apocalypse. It’s a densely packed map with plenty of buildings and routes, and the geometric complexity on offer is stunning and on par with something like Dishonored.
And it’s not just for show, either. It’s packed with several side quests, which aren’t just cookie-cutter activities that many had come to expect from such games. Dying Light’s side quests introduce new characters and take you through mini vignettes, immersing you further in the experience. Engaging with such side quests remains a fun affair, and the rewards that you earn from completing such content can prove to be pretty meaningful in the long run.
That neatly brings us over to the player progression, which is an important part of any large open-world game such as Dying Light, and players need to have some sort of overarching motivation to really sink their teeth into the game and explore these optional aspects to gain more experience. Instead of just settling for an RPG-esque skill tree where arbitrary numbers just keep going up with each earned level, Dying Light has separate skill trees depending on the kind of playstyle that you wish to buy into. These skills unlock new passive and active abilities and tricks that are actual additions to your toolkit, and not just better variants of previous moves.
And the sense of progression is pretty real too. During the initial hours, handling even a few zombies can seem like a daunting task as weapons can break easily and each enemy can take quite a number of hits before actually going down. However, as you get to really understand the mechanics and get a few skills and tactics under your belt – you will be swapping weapons and juggling large groups of zombies without breaking a sweat. Dying Light transforms you from a petty prey to a fierce predator, and the journey of earning that power fantasy is something that will keep you hooked for hours upon hours.
The story might not be something to write home about, but Dying Light’s story does create a convincing narrative that not only serves the purpose of getting you through what it has to offer but also provides a few memorable moments along the way. The writing and characters here are mostly passable, and the overarching plot is simple enough which makes it easy to follow. Rais is a great villain who commands a lot of attention in any scene, and having such characters in the cast helps in creating a largely convincing story.
Another aspect of what makes Dying Light is the extent of post-launch support that Techland has given to this game. In addition to a great post-launch expansion pack in the form of The Following which added entirely new mechanics like buggy riding, Techland also released plenty of free content updates that added a lot of new substantial stuff – in turn adding longevity to a traditionally single-player game in a way that we did not come to expect in an era where developers charged extraneous amounts for new maps or cosmetic skins.
Again, Dying Light was not a game without a few flaws. The narrative can have inconsistent writing and relies on tried and tested survival horror tropes too much, the first-person parkour can take some time to get used to, and similar petty issues do exist in the combat side of things. However, the way these mechanics come together to create a living, breathing world and how each mechanic is built with strong intent helps it stand out from the crowd. It was a lighting-in-the-bottle kind of moment for developer Techland, and while Dying Light 2 would go on to expand some of these mechanics – it never earned similar levels of praise from the critics or players.
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