Decent. Minor spoilers beware. Those who love the original Dying Light will absolutely enjoy this. Those who weren't such massive fans though...I would recommend waiting for a sale. Overall, Dying Light 2 does improve much over the original. Sadly, it also takes a few steps back in terms of story and characters. The combat against humans is a tremendous improvement over the original's in my opinion. Adding parries and blocking was a right move, as it gives players more options in combat. Combine that and some parkour skills and you have a pretty decent combat system. The best ever in an FPS game? No. But it is extremely fun to dropkick thugs and zombies off buildings. The dropkick is extremely satisfying to use. Especially after parrying an enemy, jumping over them and drop kicking another grunt right after. Makes me wish that parkour was utilized in combat a tad more. Maybe they did. I wouldn't know. This is the same game that locked SLIDING behind a skill tree. Really? I was shocked to figure that out. First impressions would've been better if Techland actually let you use certain skills right away. But most players won't even unlock all of the skills since it is locked behind exp progression. It may take a while for Dying Light 2 to reveal its full spectacle and I understand that may be a problem to some. If you really want to unlock the whole skill set available to the player, then I recommend playing through many side quests that there is no shortage of. Unfortunately, most of the time, I barely cared. In fact, I didn't care much for the story itself.
The story in Dying Light 2 is a mash of bland and uninspiring ideas that could've gone somewhere interesting, but was ultimately brought down by the underwhelming writing and subpar characters. Techland desperately wants the audience to care for the characters in the story but their attempts at making them relatable and charming fell flat. Relationships with the protagonist, Aiden, felt forced and rushed. Hakon's relationship with Aiden went by faster than a bullet train with how quick it went from Point A, Hakon befriending you and saving your life, to Point B (plot point I won't spoil but it's really nothing interesting). It just gets worse from there. Lawan is an even bigger sucker for Aiden for no reason at all. Aiden is a forgettable protagonist with the blandest personality out of all the cast but yet everybody still wants to sleep with him. On a mission where Aiden's life is at risk, Lawan gets extremely upset and worried and ends up risking her life as well. Then later, she gets pissed at Aiden for making her worry and trekking all the way to where Aiden was in danger and doing so ruined her favorite shoes. Like...I'm sorry? I only knew you for a few hours. Why would I even remotely care? Because you're the embodiment of the tough, snarky, badass girl that every AAA game pushes into their narrative to act like they're progressive? She is literally the exactly same person as Jade from the last game. She was just as forgettable due to the fact I had to google what her name was again. At least make her interesting and unique. Actually, that goes for everybody in the cast. Make them all interesting and unique. It's even more hilarious when I found out that she's romanceable. Seriously? Where does that fit into things? It came completely out of left field. Once again, Aiden only knew her for like a few days. From the moment where we met to where she's romanceable spanned throughout only 1/4th of the main story. Talk about rushing things. I wouldn't be upset about it as I am if it had some whiff of decent writing and charm. Sadly it is an apocalyptic AAA shooter. Every main character has to be as boring and one dimensional as possible.
The only thing that really impressed me throughout my playthrough was a minuscule comment made during the main quest regarding the choices that I've made in the open world. An NPC mentioned how they need an electrical station up and running but another character noted that I've already turned it on during my exploration of the open world. Then everybody in that room proceeded to thank me. The mood turned sour when they found out I decided to give the electrical power to the opposing faction. It was only two lines, but those two lines felt like my actions during side quests actually have weight to it. Yes, many other open world games react to the choices the players make but only choices made during the main quest. This was something I did out of my own curiosity while free roaming, outside of the main quest. This was the only time this happened to me during my playthrough but I don't doubt there's more like this. At least, I hope there is. I beg for more games to do this. It tremendously helps to make the world feel more immersive.
Ultimately, the free-flowing parkour and tense combat are all the positives I have for this Dying Light 2. I haven’t tried out the co-op but I expect it to be the same quality as the first game. Graphics? Pretty good. There’s a noticeable improvement in the gore and first-person animations which is nice. Soundtrack? There’s a few note-worthy tracks here and there, but nothing too special. Performance? On my RTX 2060, pretty damn well. Day One patch fixed all the issues early copy reviews had so no problems there. Although every time I boot up the game, it would suffer heavy stuttering and frame drops for a few minutes. Weird. Zombies? Yeah, that’s one of my few nitpicks with this game. Why are all recent zombie apocalypse games all about human conflict? Yes, I understand that human conflict is the reason why zombies are there but come on, not even one zombie boss in the main story? Even The Last of Us 2 had a sick boss fight against a disgustingly incredible zombie midway through. Nearly all boss fights in DL2 played the exact same way. With the exception of the final boss which is a huge upgrade compared to the original. Then again, not hard to improve on QTE: The Boss Fight. Those willing to try out Dying Light 2 should wait for a sale.
The story in Dying Light 2 is a mash of bland and uninspiring ideas that could've gone somewhere interesting, but was ultimately brought down by the underwhelming writing and subpar characters. Techland desperately wants the audience to care for the characters in the story but their attempts at making them relatable and charming fell flat. Relationships with the protagonist, Aiden, felt forced and rushed. Hakon's relationship with Aiden went by faster than a bullet train with how quick it went from Point A, Hakon befriending you and saving your life, to Point B (plot point I won't spoil but it's really nothing interesting). It just gets worse from there. Lawan is an even bigger sucker for Aiden for no reason at all. Aiden is a forgettable protagonist with the blandest personality out of all the cast but yet everybody still wants to sleep with him. On a mission where Aiden's life is at risk, Lawan gets extremely upset and worried and ends up risking her life as well. Then later, she gets pissed at Aiden for making her worry and trekking all the way to where Aiden was in danger and doing so ruined her favorite shoes. Like...I'm sorry? I only knew you for a few hours. Why would I even remotely care? Because you're the embodiment of the tough, snarky, badass girl that every AAA game pushes into their narrative to act like they're progressive? She is literally the exactly same person as Jade from the last game. She was just as forgettable due to the fact I had to google what her name was again. At least make her interesting and unique. Actually, that goes for everybody in the cast. Make them all interesting and unique. It's even more hilarious when I found out that she's romanceable. Seriously? Where does that fit into things? It came completely out of left field. Once again, Aiden only knew her for like a few days. From the moment where we met to where she's romanceable spanned throughout only 1/4th of the main story. Talk about rushing things. I wouldn't be upset about it as I am if it had some whiff of decent writing and charm. Sadly it is an apocalyptic AAA shooter. Every main character has to be as boring and one dimensional as possible.
The only thing that really impressed me throughout my playthrough was a minuscule comment made during the main quest regarding the choices that I've made in the open world. An NPC mentioned how they need an electrical station up and running but another character noted that I've already turned it on during my exploration of the open world. Then everybody in that room proceeded to thank me. The mood turned sour when they found out I decided to give the electrical power to the opposing faction. It was only two lines, but those two lines felt like my actions during side quests actually have weight to it. Yes, many other open world games react to the choices the players make but only choices made during the main quest. This was something I did out of my own curiosity while free roaming, outside of the main quest. This was the only time this happened to me during my playthrough but I don't doubt there's more like this. At least, I hope there is. I beg for more games to do this. It tremendously helps to make the world feel more immersive.
Ultimately, the free-flowing parkour and tense combat are all the positives I have for this Dying Light 2. I haven’t tried out the co-op but I expect it to be the same quality as the first game. Graphics? Pretty good. There’s a noticeable improvement in the gore and first-person animations which is nice. Soundtrack? There’s a few note-worthy tracks here and there, but nothing too special. Performance? On my RTX 2060, pretty damn well. Day One patch fixed all the issues early copy reviews had so no problems there. Although every time I boot up the game, it would suffer heavy stuttering and frame drops for a few minutes. Weird. Zombies? Yeah, that’s one of my few nitpicks with this game. Why are all recent zombie apocalypse games all about human conflict? Yes, I understand that human conflict is the reason why zombies are there but come on, not even one zombie boss in the main story? Even The Last of Us 2 had a sick boss fight against a disgustingly incredible zombie midway through. Nearly all boss fights in DL2 played the exact same way. With the exception of the final boss which is a huge upgrade compared to the original. Then again, not hard to improve on QTE: The Boss Fight. Those willing to try out Dying Light 2 should wait for a sale.