Make no mistake, Dying Light 2 capitalizes on the sequel promise of going bigger.
There are multiple factions to contend with
and those factions have numerous decisions for you to make.
Parkour and combat are also expanded.
Yet such expansion isn't always a strictly positive thing.
While the game has a lot going on, its parts don't all come together
as neatly as they should.
At its core, the mix of parkour and zombie survivalism is still engaging,
but at the same time, Dying Light 2 bites off more than it can chew.
In the first Dying Light, the opening hours are incredibly intense
as you wield melee weapons against hordes of zombies.
Because your capabilities are so limited,
you're forced to rely more on your ability to swiftly run, jump,
and climb away from danger rather than fighting head-on.
However, once guns become prevalent with ammo easy to come by,
the overall threat level lowers to a degree that significantly hurts the game.
Dying Light 2 goes out of its way to address this issue.
Although ranged weapons are still part of combat
and you can spec your character to be more proficient with them,
they feel greatly deemphasized,
with the game instead choosing to make melee scuffles more dynamic.
If you block at the right time, you stun the enemy and create an opening.
You can then vault over a stunned enemy
and perform a powerful air kick against another opponent.
It's one of several over-the-top attacks that blend parkour into combat in a way
that’s consistently enjoyable and unique to Dying Light's style.
Some power attacks can't be blocked and must be dodged.
So you have to read your opponents’ attacks carefully
and know when to go for the flashy counters.
A major change to weapons is they can't be repaired,
which is initially jarring since it's such a large component of the first game.
The decision makes perfect sense, though.
Rather than relying on any one weapon,
players are forced to regularly change out their arsenal,
carefully loot, and visit shopkeepers.
It also encourages players to mod weapons, which can enhance durability.
Speaking of mods, the different attributes they provide can be useful.
Slapping on an electricity mod for instance not only does more damage but
immobilizes an enemy, allowing for additional pummeling opportunities.
Combat is simple, but also gruesomely satisfying.
The visuals and sound blend in a way that makes you feel truly powerful.
Slicing off a head or slamming an enemy into the air really does have convincing weight and brutality,
which is exactly what you want considering the bleak post-apocalyptic setting.
Although combat is not without its charms, there also isn't enough fundamentally there
to strongly support the entire game.
The biggest issue being that encounters don't change all that much throughout.
This repetition is a criticism that applies to both human foes and zombies.
As a result, after getting a basic handle on things,
your tactics don't need to evolve continually in any great way.
Fighting groups of bandits a few times will pretty much prepare you
for everything there is to come.
While there is incentive to competently block, dodge, and so on,
there are also plenty of times when essentially hacking away with little thought gets the job done.
Boss fights aren't that different from regular enemies, either.
They have beefed up health and some unique attacks, but the strategy for taking them down is similar.
Parkour definitely fares better and manages to be the best aspect of the game from beginning to end.
Unlike the first Dying Light, players have to pay close attention to stamina
as they climb and jump.
At first, the game is perhaps a bit too restrictive with stamina, since you have so very little to make use of.
Fortunately, the issue does get much better in time,
and how the game utilizes stamina ultimately works to its advantage.
It forces you to more carefully chart a path from one point to another
as you perilously climb tall structures.
Managing stamina also leads to exciting moments
when you just barely make it to the intended destination, causing immense relief.
Helping add variety are structures such as windmills you climb and reclaim,
creating additional safe spots throughout the map.
To reclaim them, you have to clamber to the top, but it isn't an overly straightforward process.
Instead, each windmill is a small puzzle
where you have to figure out exactly how to reach the apex,
appropriately timing jumps and managing stamina along the way.
Windmills aren't that significant on their own,
but it's just one of the ways in which Dying Light 2 changes things up
when it comes to getting from point A to B.
Paragliding is brand new to Dying Light 2 and it’s an excellent addition.
Being able to glide great distances or simply to the next rooftop
is convenient without being overly so, since gliding also takes stamina.
Paragliding blends in naturally with other tools
like the grappling hook, which allows you to swing from one spot to another.
Also, grappling isn’t completely ridiculous like in the original Dying Light
where you can use the hook to circumvent obstacles.
There's strong incentive to level up in order to acquire new combat
and particularly parkour skills.
Being able to negate fall damage with a roll
or run across vertical walls are skills that make a big impact on getting around.
Dying Light 2 separates itself from a lot of other open world games since
so much of the joy doesn't just come from the quests themselves
but from the complex act of traveling across the huge map.
Where Dying Light 2 definitely drops the ball is in its narrative
and how it tells that narrative.
The game makes a big deal about the many decisions offered,
but they don't feel all that consequential.
One positive aspect about decision making
is that depending on which side you give key structures to,
you'll earn exclusive rewards like tools that make traveling easier.
It's appreciated that there are tangible things to look forward to beyond just story ramifications,
but otherwise, the storytelling is a total mess.
In our playthrough, we sided against the Peacekeepers multiple times,
only to work closely alongside them later on.
We could enter and exit their base freely as if nothing had happened at all.
Dying Light 2 claims that its choices have heavy consequences,
but it doesn't demonstrate those claims in a convincing way.
The story is in desperate need of focus.
It's clear that the game really wants to have a detailed world
with fleshed out characters,
but it tries to accomplish these goals in the clumsiest ways.
There are moments when it feels like you can spend more time
exhausting dialogue trees in a quest than actually doing the tasks required.
Of course, you don't have to exhaust dialogue trees to move forward,
but even with that in mind, Dying Light 2 doesn't present itself effectively.
Perhaps it would be more tolerable if the constant conversations weren't conducted in such a stale way.
You're locked into looking at characters straight on as they ramble.
Rosario Dawson, who plays the character Lawan, does deserve a special shoutout.
Her performance is consistently spot-on and more emotionally convincing than many others.
It's just a shame that she's so awkwardly handled in the story.
Dying Light 2 feels like it's trying to juggle way too much,
resulting in a lot of it feeling undercooked.
The game spends significant time developing so many characters
only for them to feel fairly inconsequential by the end.
When the big moments do happen, they barely register since the game
is trying to establish way too many other things simultaneously.
It wants everyone to be equally interesting and for every story to be equally valuable,
and consequently it all sort of gets canceled out.
Dying Light 2 is an enjoyable zombie survival game, but little else.
It's hard to get attached to the world on any sort of deeper level because it's too overstuffed
for any one thing to strongly resonate.
And it really, really wants you to care since
it spends so much time trying to generate those feelings.
It's a good and occasionally great game
buried in an abundance of ambition that is never fully realized.
Final score: 7 out of 10.
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