“What happened to Kyle Crane?” has been on the mind of every fan sinceDying Light: The Following, myself included. Techland has promised answers to that question and more withDying Light: The Beast, which puts players back intoKyle Crane’s shoes for the first time since the 2016 DLC. Of course, those answers also need to deliver on the evolution of Techland’s gameplay formula that was established with the original game back in 2015.
Game Rant recently played roughly four hours ofDying Light: The Beastat a hands-on event in Los Angeles. This preview skipped the prologue and dropped us right into the open world where we were able to play four main quests, two side quests, and a handful of side activities. At the end of the day,Dying Light: The Beastfelt made for the 50+ million fans who have found themselves invested in the franchise, whether they began with the original or experienced the various improvements made toDying Light 2.
Kyle Crane: Half-Survivor, Half-Beast
The first thing I noticed was the permanent scowl affixed to Kyle’s face. It’s immediately clear how much Kyle has changed in the years that have passed, making him more brutal and less at-ease than he was before the Baron tortured him for a decade. But Kyle is still very much Kyle Crane, helping out those who need it complete with aquippy one-linerto boot. Fans will likely have plenty to choose favorites from throughoutDying Light: The Beast, but during one of the side quests, he made a remark about not needing “Sherlock” to figure something out—that’s taking an early favorite here.
Kyle’s personality may have changed a bit, but his skills sure haven’t. At the beginning of the preview, we were set loose within the confines of Castor Woods, giving us our first real taste of parkour. This iconic feature of the franchise, as it is in many games, is reliant on the environment. Naturally, woodlands are not the best environment for parkour, butDying Light: The Beastmakes the most of it. I found myself climbing rocks and taking risks just to see if I could, and to my many, many surprises, it didn’t feel like there were a whole lot of limits. It felt like I was a kid in a national preserve, imagining myself jumping from rock to rock, whereas other parts felt like full-blown parkour.
But make no mistake: parkour skills are necessary to thegameplay ofDying Light: The Beast. It didn’t take us long to find ourselves in a Swiss Alps-inspired castle and town where we could really stretch our legs. It was a lot of fun pushing Kyle to the limits, and straying off the beaten path was rewarding more often than it was not. Parkour is necessary to find open windows and rooms for additional supplies, with those supplies potentially being the difference between life and death. We were also caught outside, at night, by two volatiles; the chase was thrilling, the threat was real, and the parkour shined in the moments where risky jumps and hard-pressed tricks weren’t just optional, but mandatory, for survival. But beyond that, the Swiss architecture and the parkour mechanics are a fun match-up. For parkour enthusiasts, there’s a little something everywhere, but they’ll find themselves at home in the town of Castor Woods too.
Dying Light: The Beastalso features vehicles, which taps into the age-old fantasy of running zombies over with cars, but they do not dominate the gameplay as some may have feared. They were readily available enough for longer trips, but sparse enough that I never felt obligated to use them.
The Day is for The Beast, The Night is for The Survivor
The day and night cycle returns in all its glory inDying Light: The Beast, not that there was any doubt. It’s a key pillar of the franchise, and this title applies all the learnings from the past two games. During the day, the infected are a threat but not one too hard to overcome. Players can use an array of melee weapons, skills, andguns inDying Light: The Beastto overcome the hordes. In just four hours, I had acquired a pistol and a bow, received the ability to dropkick zombies (which is SO good), and found/upgraded a handful of melee weapons. Of these, and ignoring the drop-kick skill as that would be unfair, my favorite proved to be a standard shovel. It took the most stamina to use and was risky because consuming it all would leave me vulnerable, but the sheer damage done by it was enough to make me pause several times.
Techland has repeatedly drawn attention to its new and improvedgore systems inDying Light: The Beast, and that really makes a world of difference. I exposed zombie brains, broke off jaws, caved in entire heads, broke numerous limbs, exposed a plethora of bones, spread blood on every surface imaginable, and did damage I could never imagine being done to a (formerly) human body. I also unlocked and crafted a few molotovs, and the sheer horror of watching fire consume the zombies, melting their flesh, and having them still come after me was an appropriately gruesome experience. Several times, I stopped to smell the roses just to admire the bloody messes I had left behind.
As fans know,Dying Lighthas always had an odd history with guns. The power balance between melee weapons and firearms against zombies has to be a consideration, but Techland seems to have hit the sweet spot. Guns are more effective and safer, yes, and ammo isn’t scattered everywhere willy-nilly, but the balance is in me forgetting I had ammo and losing myself to the beat of my shovel against the zombies in front of me. I’m not there to be safe, I’m there to be a beast, andDying Light: The Beast’s combatnailed that for me in the first couple of hours.
Of course, my urge to unleash the beast is calmed at night. It completely changed the game, and it feels appropriate to say that days are for the beast and nights for the survivor in Kyle Crane. The sheer number of zombies increased, volatiles lurk the streets, and all the sense of power I had was lost to fear. There was one moment where I hid, ready to die at any minute, as I used my survivor sense to realize that there were four deadly Volatiles near me. The wrong move would have simply meant I was dead.Dying Light: The Beastwalks a fine line balancing its action and horror, and the night really brings out the latter well. More than once I found myself scrambling, and it really emphasized the iconicday-night cycle of theDying Lightfranchise.
Questing in Dying Light: The Beast
Without going into spoiler territory with the missions I played,Dying Light: The Beastis clearly a revenge story against the Baronwhile Kyle can’t resist his good guy urges. He needs allies to help take on the Baron, but he also needs to overcome his limitations through boosters found in Chimera fights. These fights were, quite simply, exhilarating. During my time with the game, I fought three different Chimeras. Two of them were similar in their mechanics and tactics, both being big hulking zombies, but the third was completely different. There was a pattern to identify and engage with, but that didn’t make the challenge any easier. In fact, I needed to find more supplies and acquire better weapons before I was able to put it down for good.
Overall, it was just a small taste of the story, but it did introduce some terrifying possibilities like a day-walking Volatile and elicit some big questions from me: what’s the relationship between Kyle and the Chimeras? I’ll have to wait to launch to find out these details, but for an early four-hour section of the game, I was quite happy with the story direction but especially the gameplay.
Of the two side quests I did, my favorite involved finding an elderly father, who suffered from dementia, and helping him resolve the sins of his past. It was easily one of the best side stories in the franchise and demonstrates Techland’s writing chops. The gameplay of this quest did see the return of the Cable puzzles, which are always at their best when they limit parkour and require creativity. For an early quest, the challenge felt simple enough, but I look forward to seeing how these puzzles expand throughout the game.
Navigating all of this, of course, requires resources. The survival elements were ever-present, as I spent a lot of time looking for crafting materials to never have more than a couple bandages, decoys, molotovs, or grenades at a time. This required me to check my parkour routes carefully for open buildings, encouraged me to explore each area I visited, and put pressure on each and every combat encounter.Dying Light: The Beast is a survival-action game, and one isn’t sacrificed for the other.
There are also open world activities that are a great way to find resources.Dying Light: The Beastis not anopen-world gamewhere activities and tasks are littered across the map, thus turning each discovery into a practical decision for acquiring resources. Dark Zones are small buildings filled with zombies, which requires players to be quick and silent or, at least, quick and efficient at zombie killing. Convoys, meanwhile, are protected by enemies and require players to find military cards to open for rare loot. They all added and felt natural in the extant gameplay loop.
I’m not there to be safe, I’m there to be a beast, and Dying Light: The Beast’s combat nailed that for me in the first couple of hours.
Four hours is not enough time to form strong conclusions on any game, much less one as layered asDying Light: The Beast. But it is enough to understand why Techland is so excited about the title and why the company has occasionally referred to it asDying Light 3. There’s something special happening inCastor Woods, and I can’t wait to go camping again in August.
Game Rant was provided travel and lodging for the purposes of this preview.
