Rating overall: 3,2/5
Hours of time played: 26h
6/7 Fun: Playing an open world RPG coop with a friend is just a blast and the parkour elements and parkour combat never gets boring till the end. Only a few bugs and clunky mechanics dampen the experience.
2/6 Story: Yeah well, it started off interesting but the quest design and especially the dialogues are really out of place sometimes. In the end we had more fun just skipping through the dialogues.
3/3 Graphics: Beautiful Game which is running fluently too enjoy the parkour around the city.
3/6 Atmosphere: Playing alone sure makes this game scarier but the music is great and the voice acting by Matt Mercer is nearly too good for this game. The sound design is great too.
2/3 Gameplay: There are a lot of bugs happening here especially while climbing, but these are minor flaws in the perspective of using tons of skills and gadgets to move around quickly through the city and killing zeds.

I am an huge fan of the first Dying Light, it's tight and satisfying progression system with an well-made and fun melee combat + rich side-content really made me love that game back in the day. when this sequel was announced in 2018 I was very excited to see what Techland could take that approach and improved it immensely though it did improves a lot over the first game, it also feels an downgrade in others.

the parkour-system and combat are still great and fighting with Humans is no longer an slog for example.

progression-system is just as tighter like the first game, Techland once again nailed that feeling of being an lazy character during your first hours of playtime to effectively flying over the open-world and killing enemies with style later in the game.

the open-world itself it's your usual Ubisoft game mostly, mixed activities all around the map that gets old quickly.

Night-time don't feel as risky like in the first game since they had the brilliant idea to remove the Volatiles roaming the streets and is genuinely not that terrifying anymore.

combat against Infected is nowhere near as satisfying like in Dying Light 1 and they are no longer the focus in this game.

the story definitely had it's moments and I considered it to be better than DL1 but yeah the writing is still atrocious mostly.

overall Dying Light 2 is fun and it did improved it on the design of the series but the other areas felt like an step back and it made me appreciate the first one far more in retrospect.

bad techland. a foul omen when you first boot the game up and they reference Who Do You Voodoo Bitch from legendarily awful game dead island. much ado in the marketing about the Factional Systems and how they would effect the Storytelling and Map in this game but it seems to have come at the cost of the actually solid straight gameplay systems that the first game cultivated. and then the story fucking sucks!! it's just as bad as the first one and there's so much more of it! there's more to do on a purely technical level but it's all dispersed randomly across the map and it feels useless. the only mildly interesting idea this game has is the darkness timer that still feels wasted by not being tied into any core gameplay loops. it's like if you had volatile stealth from dying light 1 but only in certain building interiors and nowhere else. and now there's gonna be a fucking layers of fear 3. what is happening in poland right now????

This game makes me so sad, dude. Imagine having the best, most hyped game in existence turned to shit. This is what Dying Light 2 is. I'm sorry, but god is this game just... Wrong on so many levels. The first game came out of nowhere, with no expectations, and it blew everyone away. It was literally Dead Island, a game loved basically universally, with PARKOUR! And now, with more development time and a higher budget, Dying Light 2 is somehow worse than its predecessor. Maybe it's the charm the first game had, or the time period, or the nostalgia, but the first Dying Light can't be beaten. Especially not by... Whatever this is.

Random RPG elements: Why are some of the basic features in the game relegated to RPG Skill Tree bullshit? Why did this game turn into an RPG in the first place? It's okay to have a skill tree, but christ at least make it something interesting and not just "Generic RPG Element #241". One of my favorite genre of games is RPG but this just ain't how you do it. You can't have one foot in the Open-World, Action, Horror Game and one in the RPG, Skill Tree, Ability-Based Game.

10/10 Story: Somehow, the first game's anonymous and generic ass story was so much better than this one. Who cares about Mia, or all the weird plot points they tried to bring up. Aiden has about the same charisma as a broom and while the voice actor is good, every other voice actor (except maybe for Hakon) sucks. They sound so much like "videogame characters" and I hate that. I love campiness, hell Evil Dead is one of my favorite movie franchises, but jeez at least don't make them sound like they came straight out of Oblivion. Give me back Crane, for the love of god.

No firearms: WHAT?! WHY? I agree that gunplay was pretty pretty bad and boring in the first game (in all Dead Island-esque games to be honest) but it was an option that existed, and it makes no sense why they would remove it. And then it's justified in-game with the "no ammo being produced anymore" bullshit.

Floaty Parkour: It is so weird. The parkour in the first one was perfect, but this one just feels kinda... Meh. It's floaty, it's slower, and it's kinda clunky, especially when making long jumps. It feels like you're being magnetically attracted to what you're jumping towards.

Multiplayer sucks ass: Okay like literally, what sense does it make for a game that used to be SO FUN in multiplayer, to get relegated to this broken, non-working, mess of a system. No co-op story progression, no different characters, buggy sync between clients, goofy ahh animations 💀 and the worst offender... It just doesn't work. Especially at launch, it sucked to much ass. And people kept saying they would "fix it".

And that's the problem. Games nowadays can suck dick and everyone will say they're gonna be "fixed" and everything will be good and jolly. But that's not how it should work. If you release a game, you need to be 100% confident it'll be at the very least stable. Even AC:Unity, one of my favorite Assassin's Creed games, sucked so much when it was first released. Cyberpunk, GTA Definitive Collection, Battlefield 2042, Fallout 76. This is not how games should be released. Polish them. For christ's sake, you had SO MUCH TIME TO FIX IT AND YET YOU DIDN'T.

It is a huge letdown and I could smell it a mile away. It's such a downgrade compared to the iconic first game and I can't help but be sad at how many sequels are ruining their franchises nowadays. It truly is... Sad.

I could get into so much more but it's not worth it, not for a game like this. Shame on you, Techland. Shame on you.

Not the worst game I've ever played. But then again...

Where do I even get started on this one, I just finished the first game, but didnt go too deep with it since I figured I'd spend all my time 100%ing this one since its the sequel it should be better right? Yes, and no.

Played through Dying Light 1 RIGHT BEFORE this one on hard, so I figured hard difficulty would be a great fit for me, since it felt good to play in the first game. I WAS WRONG. The difficulty is completely nonsensical in this game for two reasons.

The game starts you out weaker than a tube sock that's been soaking in warm water for 20 years. Enemies when you start can take like 30 hits from your BEST weapon before they go down. Early on in the story (not even 3 missions in I believe) you have to unlock a sewer entrance or something like that, didnt seem like a problem, or was it? There was around 5 zombies sitting overtop of it that even with all the loot I collected up until that point, it wasn't enough to take them down, leading to the first quarter of the game to be an unfun frustrating mess, not strong enough to loot anything, nothing to find as well due to low level.

Flash forward to around a bit before the midway point of the game, and I could've sworn the game somehow switched to "game reviewer mode".


Suddenly I noticed that I take absolutely NO damage from anything, and everything just suddenly falls apart like stinky toilet paper. It continued like this getting even easier and easier, until combat feels absolutely boring, clunky, and ends up just being "walk forward and swing until everything dies", "if you get low on health, dont worry, just slowly walk away and heal, thanks for the 30+ medkits, dunno what I would do without 40 immunity boosters and 30 medkits at all times.

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So now that the combat is pointed at and laughed lets talk about everyones favorite part of the first game, imagine a fast paced chase, ducking and weaving through buildings running from zombies, surviving by the skin of your teeth while they get closer and closer.

now imagine all of that ruined in the sequel, yeah, they ruined the BEST thing about the first game, and pretty much the ONLY thing that really separated it from other zombie games like Dead Island for example.

How did they ruin it? hmm, well for starters, you start the game with the stamina of my 87 year old grandfather after a long night out. Want to climb a wall? Nah, you gotta walk or else youll fall right off. Want to hit an enemy more than twice without passing out? Nah you gotta just fall over and take a nappy boo.

Stupid stamina meter that you have to follow a little hide and seek game to upgrade, as well as your health, which the game starts you out with a healthbar the size of a thumbtack.

Not the worst system, but absolutely pointless once you pump yourself with a few shots, you turn into a unkillable hulk within hours making that whole grind lame.

Stamina aside, your character somehow feels like hes walking on slippy slidey cracked eggs, your legs literally have a mind of their own making you fall off of things constantly and a strange time controlling your speed on a keyboard. For a game about fast paced parkour, this guy cant seem to get a grasp, grab onto, or even walk in a straight line half the time.

Wait, this game even had parkour in it? I actually dont remember since there is a line between climbing and parkour. Dying light 1 felt like parkour but could definitely be expanded on. Dying light 2 just feels like youre forever stuck in the climbing sections in a first person Uncharted game. That is, until you unlock the glider, once you do that the game completely turns into climb up somewhere tall fly slowly and boringly to your next destination

and dont even try to say that it is worthwhile to go exploring on your way, every single "dungeon area" is a complete copy and paste of the last one, and its not like you need any loot, since the quest rewards are more than enough to kill anything easily, or buy things to make whatever you want. Not worth it at all to go looting anymore.

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Then my favorite part of the game, when it was finished. Do you know why? BECAUSE I CANT FINISH IT. I defeated what I presume to be the final boss, and you know what my reward is? A dying woman in my arms on loop into a black screen that crashes my game every single time I load it up. So I cant even finish this game.

That isnt even the half of it, flying into a new location you have to always be on foot, since flying always unloads the ground for me when I enter a new area of the map, so I end up seeing dissapearing buildings first, then everything else goes as well so I just fall into the abyss forever and have to reload.

Also, jumping on top of a pipe caused me to glitch inside it during a major story quest in a sewer, leaving me stuck there until I crafted enough molotovs to kill myself in there to reload.

Getting stuck seems extremely common in this game, be careful when flying into the peacekeepers base (a major story location) if you go too fast, youll fall right behind their sign, leaving you stuck there with no way out (you cant jump in friendly locations).

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Talking about story locations makes me want to talk about the story, but I honestly dont think I can, since theres only like two things that actually happen in it, everything else is just random shit that comes up that half of it doesnt even feel like "main story" material, I can barely tell the difference between main quests and sidequests in this game since half of the main ones have as little to do with the plot as the side ones.

Characters are a mess as well. Aside from a few that I enjoyed, everyone was just so damn boring and they are introducing and killing off characters all the way up until the ending so you barely have a grasp on who you are supposed to care about until a few quests later when they either die or you have to make a crazy choice with them

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Now its time for the good things, and believe me, there arent many.

the map design is pretty decent, getting from one place to another always has a fun path to it across rooftops or through the streets.

Aidens voice actor is amazing, and for the most part, everyone did a great job with what they were given.

The game looks pretty good, and runs not bad either on my PC.

its always fun to mow through zombies albeit a little too easy later on.

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And last, the ending. Or lack thereof, last chapter literally feels like they want you to stop playing, it feels like its forcing you out of the game at mach speed with no payoffs for anything built up. Half of the stuff isnt even resolved by the ending as well and they wrap up everything in a 10 second cutscene about some crap you dont even care about? nah.

This game isnt great, no idea why I put so much time into it. Had more fun writing this review tbh.

My second playthrough of Dying Light 2 cemented how I feel about this game,
It's good, it's enjoyable, but it could do a lot more.

It just feels like it's missing... something?

I'm also rarely-never a fan of level scaling with enemies, let me level up, reach the maximum and just plow through everyone. Why do I still feel 'under levelled' when I've got no other skills I could possibly get?

I'm also not a huuuuge fan of the weapon damage system in this, it seems weapons break way too fast and unlike other games where they have this, there's nothing else to 'experiment' with in terms of weaponry as an alternative.

Besides that, the story is alright, the world is somewhat detailed and filled with things to do and the traversal is great.

Yep, they didn't know what they were doing. This is basically the first game but worse. It does have cute graphics but even these are like, not necessarily a step up. They're different enough to not be comparable tho. It's a lot more bright and flashy this time around, for better or worse. Ok actually there's one thing this game has going for it, and it's the parkour music. I had a ton of fun running around just to activate the music. Maybe it even made parkour feel better in this game in the end? But if parkour feels better, combat certainly does not and uh... Idk I mean even if parkour is more fun, that's really it. Nights are flawed, monsters are way more boring, you really gotta force yourself to run around in circles for a long time if you want any intensity and yeah idk this game definitely did not capture the essence of it's prequel... Playing with no hud was at least fun for a bit. And it's not all bad I still managed to find ways to enjoy the game, but it's definitely not expertly crafted at all. Oh yeah the story is a joke

Zzzzzzzz.....zzzzzz......

The core gameplay is largely the same as the previous installment, which on it's own is fine, but in context with change of setting and some odd additions to the gameplay loop, just serves to remind you of how much more enjoyable the first one was. Falls into the usual trap of having a leveling system and skill trees full of near-useless shit, purely so they can gate areas off and keep you picking up new weapons and gear, prolonging the experience just a little bit more and keeping in line with the usual 'content overload' style of making open-world games. The addition of stealth is also - as you can imagine in a game about parkour and killing things - exceeding boring, and seems only to serve to extend your playtime just that little bit more. Slightly more interesting is the ability for the player to make 'meaningful' choices in the story, which despite actually having an effect on the ending and the fate of certain characters, the story and characters themselves are just so sauceless I can't bring myself to care - and what the fuck is Rosario Dawson doing in this?

Just replay the first one.

Meh, feels weird to experience this after the first game, it feels like it's a step down, especially with the sensation of movement and the liberty of the gameplay, always frustrating, the story is so boring, characters are bland, and no grapple, wth techland
It's graphically impressive, yes, but what's the point when the gameplay and feeling doesn't follow up ? it's a total mess, and when i see so many mods that changes gravity etc because so many people are convinced that we are on the moon and not on earth is not that suprising, i'm so pissed off to have spent full price for this
not a bad game, but the first game is WAY better

Dying Light 2 Stay Human é a primeira grande decepção de 2022. O game prometeu uma campanha excelente, com escolhas e consequencias, evolução de mecanicas e muito mais. Entretanto, o resultado entregue foi um jogo quebrado, que regrediu nos principais elementos que o tornaram único. Além disso, a falta de desenvolvimento dos personagens, tornou a campanha cansativa e até mesmo tediante em vários momentos.

A introdução dos elementos de RPG e o mundo aberto gigante mas com conteúdo vazio tornaram a experiência pouco imersiva. Pois, o sentimento de estar realmente naqueles locais foi pouco presente durante a experiência. Logo, o game apresenta muitas escolhas e poucas que realmente importam. Isto faz com que o jogador termine o título se sentindo enganado.

Por fim, Dying Light 2 Stay Human é um game que tinha a promessa de elevar a qualidade do título antecessor a um novo patamar. Entretanto, o resultado foi justamente o contrário, tornando assim a jornada frustrante e decepcionante para os fãs do primeiro jogo.

Combat with both the infected and humans was really fun, even if it was a lil' barebones. Parkour was very fun as well, even though I was annoyed with how stamina was handled at the start, I got used to it after a while and I think it added to the feeling of progression as I leveled up my stamina and could overcome higher and higher obstacles. Speaking of, progression felt pretty nice, you need to collect inhibitors around the world to increase stamina and health, and there are seperate skill trees for combat and parkour, with approximately 25 skills in each. I spent nearly 50 hours playing and finished (almost) all open world activities, along with some side quests. Just hanging around in the world and completing random stuff, even though the activities in the open world are pretty repetitive, was more fun than I expected it to be. Story is okay, choices don't effect much, which was my biggest disappointment with the game along with the fact there are waay too many parkour challenges. I did like 4-5 of them and did not bother with the rest. They are just basic "reach these checkpoints in a limited amount of time" activities and this many was not necessary in my opinion.Thankfully, they're all optional. Good game overall.

This game was a massive disappointment. Not only was it plagued with performance issues but it was a step down in almost everyway from the first game. The combat feels so much less impactful and the parkour is fun but becomes pointless once you acquire some upgrades for your wingsuit and grappling hook. The story is also soooo poorly paced and written it felt like such a slog to sit through characters who I couldn't care less about just vomit exposition and nonsense at me when all I wanted to do was jump around and bash zombies. What a letdown.

DL2 foi uma grande decepção para me em 2022 pois eu estava acompanhando seu desenvolvimento desde seu primeiro anúncio, e ele consegue ser 10x pior que o primeiro jogo que por outro lado é maravilhoso um dos melhores jogos de ação de zumbi já feito tudo que o primeiro game tinha de bom eles conseguiram piorar nesse game, começando pelo parkour que nesse game eles meteram um sistema de estamina que so fica aceitável lá pro final do game, o gancho que era super divertido no primeiro game se tornou uma corda chata que você quase não usa, os gráficos consegue ser pior que o primeiro game, a história é uma chatice as motivações do protagonista é um clichê do caralho, sem falar no sistema de missão que virou um FarCry da vida, você é literalmente um escravo de qualquer NPC que aparece na história, se você estava pensando em comprar esse jogo eu indico testar mas não espere um DL1 melhorado, Dead Island 2 ta a frente desse game

The game has a good narrative and the cinematographic values of the cutscenes were really good. The story at points does feel a bit stretched out and it could have been shorter. The side quests are, however, quite boring and most of the times it is just go here, kill this, get this and these characters are all just a bit lifeless. The world is also amazing with a more European style to all the architecture and some great vistas.
The gameplay is amazing with fun platforming and gory limb cutting. The only negative aspect here are some bugs and the sometimes unresponsiveness of the controls.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game but I do think the original is a bit better as it is a bit tighter with its storytelling and the amount of quests presented. Still I liked it enough to complete it.
(Ps. the Ultramarathon trophy is, however, a bs time slug)

This game is nice, it really is, it's a massive improvement on plenty of the gameplay elements from the first game. And alot of the features added in subsequent updates really highlight this game well. But the story isn't for everyone, I enjoyed it but I can definitely see why it wouldn't be enjoyed by someone else. I also on subsequent playthroughs outside of the very endgame don't understand why you would do anything other than side with the peacekeepers. Whenever I thought about it the survivors don't do much to earn your trust outside of a simple "I'm sorry" and playing the sympathy card against a militant force despite being ready to hang you in front of everyone moments earlier. I also find it hard to give a fuck about most of the characters in the DLC. They're not very well written.