Four hours with at last week’s preview event wasn’t nearly enough. Being back in Kyle Crane’s shoes - and watching those shoes kick a zombie in the face - is a real treat, and leaping from rooftop to rooftop in Castor Wood’s idyllic alpine village is as satisfying as it looks. It didn’t leave me wཧith any of the concerns I had the first time I played Dying Light 2, which is probably because it isn’🐼t really a sequel to Dying Light 2 at all, but a sequel to the original Dying Light.
"We Cannot Mess Up To Any Extent": Dying Light: The Beast Devs Know How Fans Will React If The Game Isn't Good
Techland says its aiming for "perfection."
When I spoke t🐲o franchise director Tymon Smektała at Sumꦆmer Game Fest last month, he described The Beast as a♔ culmination of everything Techland has learned from the start of the series, and a combination of all the best parts of Dying Light and its polarising sequel.. Considering the way the studio has slowly transformed Dying Light 2 into the original over the last few years, it’s hard to tell what, if any, influence The Beast takes from it. Rather, The Beast takes us back to the glory days of Dying Light, and damn, it feels good to be back.
Welcome Back, Crane
Following the events of, er, The Following, Crane spent 13 years as a non-consenting test subject in some kind of zombified Weapon-X program. T-Virus would probably be a more apt comparison, but I’m trying to expand my references. Newly escaped, Crane is on a warpath to find and punish his captor, the mysterious Baron. The plan is simple: track down his fellow experimentees, called variants, use their special blood to get stronger, and recruit an army of townsfolk who have their own grievances against the Baron. Along the way, Crane will learn 🌄to live with the last effects of his experimentation and tame the beast inside him, lest he lose himself to Mr. Hyde.
The Beast is more lik𒁃e The Hulk,ꦏ but again, references.
Narrative was a big focus in Dying Light 2, and while its branching storyline didn’t quite come together the way I’d hoped, it’s clear Techland is still pushing for resonant storytelling in The Beast. The premise might be simple, but a less convoluted plot allows for more exploration of characters, mot💎ivations, and relationships. Even in the first few hours, 🎃The Beast is filled with memorable moments that help flesh out the world and set the story’s tone.
You first arrive in the village amidst chaos. 🍃The survivors at the town hall have lost🌳 power and are under attack, and though you’re able to swoop in and save the day, you arrive too late to prevent one person from getting bitten. This person shows his wound to the group, and before anyone can stop him, shoots himself in the head.
That scene ends with Crane receiving directions to his next mission, but if you hang around the town hall for a while, you can see how this person’s death affects everyone. From the town’s mayor consoling his best friend to the guy mopping up the spilled brain matter and complaining loudly about the mess, you get a sense of who these survivors are and what kind of relationships they have with each other. The Beast may not have a choice-based narrative, but the things that happen do have conseque𝄹nces.
Worst. Summer Camp. Ever.
When The Beast was first revealed, I had some concerns about its rural setting. Dying Light is at its best when you’re running from a horde down a narrow alley, scraꦍmbling up a building, and clenching your cheeks as you perilously leap 🍨from lethal ledges. How can I do any of that stuff in a forest? From what roofs will I vault? From what wall will I run upon?
Well, first of all, there’s a thing called free climbing - or as 𝓰I like to call it: rock climbing for maniacs. It turns out Crane’s exp🧜erience scaling buildings makes him an expert at bouldering too, and Techland has done an excellent job building the same kind of platforming puzzle solving into traversing the outskirts that you’d find in Dying Light’s urban areas.
The new setting isn’t just delivering variety ꦜfor variety's sake, though. With a return to a more survival-horror style gam🍌eplay (nighttime is hunting season for Volatiles once again), The Beast taps into the roots of zombie horror in a way previous Dying Light games couldn’t.
A lone cabin in the woods evokes classics like Evil Dead and, well, Cabin in the Woods, building a sense of helpless isolation, especially at night. When you lose the claustrophobia of the city, you can play with agoraphobia instead. A misty swamp covered in overgrown foliage gives cover to approaching enemies. It’s hard to tell which direction sounds are coming from when they ꦏhave nothing to bounce off of, so it's easy to imagine the danger is all around you. When you can’t just jump onto a box truck and scurry up a drain pipe to get away, those shambling corpses are suddenly a lot more dangerous.
Pure Distilled Dying Light
Unlike its predecessors, The Beast has j🌞ust one big map. After four hours of playtime, I saw just a tiny fraction of it. It may have started out as an expansion for Dying Light 2, but The Beast looks and feels like a full-sized game.
The only evidence that this is a pared-down sequel is the meager scope of the upgrade tree. The Beast offers the least amount of character progression yet, with just a small handful of combat, parkour, and survival talents, and a separate upgrade path for Beast Abilities, which includes techniques as basic as sprinting and manual activating beast mode (in the early game this happens automatically when the beast meter is full, because Crane can’t control it). There are all the staples, including the drop kill, afterboost, and windmill, but there are only the staples.
It epitomizes Techland’s approach to The Beast🍷. After swinging for the fences with Dying Light 2 and pushing the formula further than fans were comfortable with, The Beast is focused on refining Dyi🦹ng Light’s most winning formula. There isn’t much that’s new about The Beast. That might not sound like an exciting way to describe a sequel, but for long-time fans, it will be a relief to see a familiar Dying Light.
There is some cool new tech. Techland built its in-house C-Engine while developing Dying Light 2, and now The Beast 💝is demonstrating what it’s capable of in a more complete state. There are some impressive dynamic weather effects, more granular damage and dismemberment systems that let you chunk off pieces of zombie skull and bones, and some of the best character animations around. It feels like a third entry in a series in the sense that Techland really has a handle on what Dying Light is 🥀now.
If there’s anything to critique, it’s the titular Beast itself. I’m not sold on the mechanic, which basically b🍨oils down to a Kratos-style rage meter that lets you spam-punch everything around you for a few seconds. I’m hoping it gets more interﷺesting with upgrades, but it seems like a better narrative device than a gameplay feature.
꧋After an encounter with a particular variant, I’m not sure ܫThe Beast actually refers to Crane anymore.
Otherwise, The Beast is exactly what you want from Dying Light, wi𝓰💝thout all the things you didn’t want from Dying Light 2. You get to camouflage yourself in zombie guts without worrying about an immunity meter. You get to carry guns but you don’t have to manage your stamina when you climb. You can craft gear, but you don’t have to worry about any kind of class system. I’m not sure if it's the best of both worlds or a return to form, but I know it looks like what I want a Dying Light game to be.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Dying Light: The Beast
- Released
- August 22, 2025
- ESRB
- ⛦ M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Use of Dꦦrugs
- Developer(s)
- Techland
- Publisher(s)
- Techland
- Multiplayer
- ꦺOnline Co-Op♚
- Franchise
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dying Light
- PC Release Date
- August 22, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- August 22, 2025
