It's been quite a while since I've written a review, been a bit burnt out from this site. But Dying Light 2 felt like a good game to come back from. In a year where I've tried to buy every single big release, this was one of the ones I was perhaps the most excited for. I really enjoyed my time with the first game. How long this spent in development was a little worrying but the new features they promised sounded enticing and I was sure they would do a good job if they just focused on improving what they had accomplished already.

The launch of Dying Light 2 was a mess. I remember a twitter post promising "500 hours of content" and was Immediately a bit worried but still hopeful. And then launch happened. My initial impression was a bit mixed and as I played the bugs started to show more and more. I lost a lot of progress because things wouldnt load properly. Some scenes would be without dialogue, some missions wouldnt start. I ended up taking a really big break until I decided to try and finish it a month or so ago. I can say the state of this game has been improved a lot. It still lacks a lot of polish in some areas, especially with character models loading in with textures and the occasional no audio but it didnt feel like a chore to play anymore and I could focus on the good stuff.

For one, the parkour excellent. Im not really a fan of the upgrade system but all the moves you can do make things feel really amazing. The grappling hook is very limited but fun. Only issue is that everything costs a lot of stamina so if you wanna use stuff like the glider it limits a lot of creativity. I do recommend turning off the auto ledge grab setting as well as it makes the gameplay a lot smoother. The combat is okay. Enemies block a lot and the sound effects are really bad, but the gore is great and it is always satisfying to dropkick someone off a building. There is an interesting concept with the main character being infected and there's some scenes where that turns into really fun stuff. This is all limited to story though and tbf it would be very overpowered but to not even have it as a mechanic post game feels like a missed opportunity. Biggest gameplay disappointment for me though was the nighttime chases. Night time in the first game was downright scary but it felt really lackluster in this one. I had to run around in circles purposefully to try to get level 4 and it still took ages. The actual open world itself also feels okay. It gets a lot more interesting in the second area when more traversal options open up. The enemy density has been improved since release but at launch it felt like a ghost town. The side content is all kinda standard for the genre but its stll enjoyable and fits within the context of the game. I didnt get much out of the siding factions deal. I was gonna do cleanup but be warned that the game decides there should be a difficulty spike where it scales all enemies up a few levels if you decide to play postgame. This made things a bit more annoying for basically no reason so I decided to move on to other games.

Then there is the story. A lot of people say its terrible but to me it really wasn't. A large part of that is because I have been in love with Rosario Dawson ever since Men In Black II but also Idk, I enjoyed it? I thought the stuff with Frank and Hakkon and nightrunners was pretty interesting. It has some really good music in a few moments and I was quite pleased with the ending I got. The protag is kinda blank and I dont even remember his name but it didnt bother me much. I also liked the story in the first game which was also shat on though so take my thoughts with however much salt you'd like.

In the end, Dying Light 2 is a mess of a game. Its unpolished, had a middling launch, is definitely not gonna take 500 hours of your time even if you're diehard ... but still in the end I had a positive experience from it. I liked the characters and the parkour is as fun as ever. I know just about everyone is kinda over them but I will never not love zombie games. It should of been delayed but I'm glad it wasn't abandoned. I'm hopeful techland can make up for this with Dead Island 2 next year. Im not quite sure if its pre order worthy yet but I'll keep a close eye on it for next time.

Thanks for reading everyone. Up next I have some reviews for things like Rollerdrome, Bugsnax, Balan Wonderworld, Marvel's Avengers and Stray I've been neglecting. But we'll see how it goes, hopefully it doesnt take another month for y'all to hear from me lol. I appreciate your support < 3

Trophy Completion - 55% (33/58)
Time Played: 43 hours 35 minutes
Nancymeter - 73/100
Game Completion #131 of 2022
October Completion #8
Spooktober 2022 Game #5