Dying Light 2 was easily one of the most-hyped games of 2022. Considering how successful its predecessor was, everyone was expecting big things from the sequel. And two days ago, the game was finally released across all platforms. As expected, the game is better and more fun than the previous one. When you start playing Dying Light 2, you’ll instantly know that the game is going to be good. Also, if you have started the game, make sure to go through Best Dying Light 2 Weapons and start strong.

The Story (Potential Spoilers Ahead)

The game takes place in Villedor, a city that has abandoned buildings with humans having their own safe zones to protect themselves from the threat of the undead. There are two groups that live in the city, the Peacekeepers and the Survivors. The story is set 15 years after the first outbreak that took place in Harran. Even though the scientists found a cure for the virus, they continued messing around, something that led to another outbreak. And its outcome is what you’ll witness in Dying Light 2.

Related: Dying Light 2 Blueprints

In the game, you’ll take control of Aiden, who is a Pilgrim. And for those wondering, Pilgrims are a group of people who, unlike anyone else, are always willing to go beyond the walls and explore places filled with the infected. They aren’t afraid of anyone and will do anything to achieve their goal. As for Aiden, his ultimate goal is to find his sister, Mia. Through flashbacks, we get to know that the two were separated years ago when an evil scientist, Waltz, was trying to experiment on them.

Dying Light 2 Review — Image Credits: Techland

While investigating about his sister’s whereabouts, Aiden meets someone who tells him that he knows about her. However, because of an incident, he is left with a GRE access key, a rare key that allows the holder to unlock all crates and equipment created by the GRE. While taking this key to someone who knows about his sister, Aiden finds himself in the city of Villedor, where he meets a guy who decides to help him. From this point onwards, you get to experience the extensive world of Dying Light 2 that is filled with amazing characters, tough enemies, and breathtaking views.

Gameplay

The game allows players to either continue with the main quests or choose from side missions and activities. If you’re someone who just wants to play the game for the story, then it’ll take you around 20 hours to complete it. However, if you’re in for the long haul, then buckle up as it will take you around 500 hours to complete the entire game, which includes collecting every single piece of collectible item. While we haven’t played the game for 500 hours ourselves, this was revealed by Techland itself.

Similar: best Bows in Dying Light 2

Parkour is the biggest element of Dying Light 2. Compared to the first part, the parkour mechanics of the sequel feel more smooth and fun. You can jump from one building to another and climb different obstacles as well. At the beginning of the game, you will be unable to climb some structures because of your low stamina level. However, as you make progress through the game, you’ll be able to increase your stamina level, something that will help you always stay on the move.

Throughout the city, and almost wherever you go, you’ll be able to find different types of loot, such as weapons, crafting materials, and much more. You’ll also be able to pick up some valuable items that you can sell to the merchants for some cash. There also exist blueprints in the game that can be either found at different spots or can be purchased from Craftmasters. These blueprints can help you with crafting different kinds of stuff and can also upgrade your weapons.

Combat

Just like the first part, Dying Light 2 gives players the luxury to choose from a wide range of different weapons. During the early stages of the game, you will have to stick with some weak weapons such as the Pipe or the Baseball bat, but these will help you easily take down the zombies that you’ll encounter at that time. As you progress through the game, you’ll be able to acquire powerful weapons such as Swords, Katanas, Hammers, and much more.

The zombies are not that difficult in the beginning, but get tougher and tougher as you level up and progress through the game. Most of the combat is melee-based, but you will get to use ranged weapons later on in the game. Through the skill tree, you can unlock new moves for Aiden as well that help him take down his targets more quickly and easily. Read our Dying Light 2 Best Skils for more on this.

Watch Out For The Night

In many games, it doesn’t matter whether you’re wandering around at night or during the day. However, in Dying Light 2, both day and night will put you in a different kind of situation. During the daytime, you’ll see only a few zombies walking around in the street, and this will allow you to move around the city quickly. However, inside buildings, you’ll need to be careful as the undead take shelter there and protect themselves from the sunlight.

At night, things will get rough. Every zombie comes out to the streets and you’ll be unable to recognize them since they are much quicker and stronger than how they are during the daytime. You’ll also encounter new types of zombies at nighttime, and just by taking a look at them, you’ll want to run away. They’re fast, powerful, and will not hesitate to rip you apart. However, since every zombie comes out to the street at nighttime, you’ll be able to explore the insides of the buildings much more quickly and easily at this time. Furthermore, you also get more rewards and XP at nighttime, so you’ll be getting something in return after all for putting yourself at such a great risk by going out at the night.

Capture Control Points

In Villedor, you’ll find multiple buildings such as electrical substations that you can take over. You will first need to solve various puzzles in order to take control of the building. And after you’re done with that, you’ll have the option to hand it over to either the Survivors or Peacekeepers. Both come with their own perks. If you hand it over to the Survivors, then you’ll be able to see more zip lines, jump pads, air vents, and so on around the city. In short, your parkour experience will further improve. But if you hand the building over to the Peacekeepers, then you’ll come across more car bomb traps, turrets, and other kinds of traps across the city that will help you fight the enemies more effectively.

Character Upgrade

There also exists a character upgrade section in the game where you can use skill points to upgrade different traits about your character. Through this, you can make Aiden faster, stronger, and better than before. You can spend skill points to either make him good in combat or make him faster in parkour. It will be up to you whether you first want to transform Aiden into something who can bring down tough opponents quickly, or someone who can reach a destination quickly. However, I will suggest you try to keep a balance between the two from the start. This way, you’ll be able to enjoy both sides.

Performance and Bugs

I tested the game on the Asus Zephyrus G15, which has the following specs:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 8GB
Ram: 16 GB
SSD: 1 TB
Display: 165hz 1440p

With everything set to high, I was able to get 60+ FPS. Since I was testing the game on a laptop that has a 2k resolution screen, 1080p users can expect the frame rate to be much higher with the same settings. You can read our Best Dying Light 2 Settings guide for information on optimizing it to the fullest.

Overall, the gameplay experience was smooth and I enjoyed the view a lot. Dying Light 2 is definitely a visually stunning game and people with high-end rigs are surely going to enjoy each moment of it.

As for bugs and glitches, there were a couple of them. However, if you go to Reddit or Twitter, you’ll see that players complained about a lot of bugs, with some even claiming that they were unable to start quests because of bugs. As for me, some of the bugs I faced included zombies freezing, things not rendering properly, glitches in cutscenes, and a few more.

There were also moments when the FPS dropped, but this happened only a few times. All of this was kind of expected considering it’s rare to see a game that is free from bugs and glitches at launch. However, Techland is the kind of developer who always listens to the feedback from its fans. Therefore, we can expect most of the bugs to go away with the next few updates.

Verdict

Overall, Dying Light 2 is a fun game that won’t disappoint you. The story is not slow and will keep you attached to your screen. Techland has done a remarkable job with creating a zombies game that allows players to explore a huge open world filled with amazing characters and exciting quests. The combat, graphics, and the mechanics, almost everything about the game is up to the mark. Techland has surely outdone themselves by creating a game that is bigger, and better than the prequel.