Dying Light 2: Stay Human Reviews
Bugs, repetitive side content, bad storytelling, and the unfulfilled promise of its choice and consequence system leave Dying Light 2 unable to capitalise on the strength of its excellent parkour and combat mechanics.
With a significantly improved movement system, an engrossing, branching narrative, and an open world that's consistently engaging, Dying Light 2 was well worth the extended wait.
Dead inside. Enter at your own risk.
Dying Light 2 still retains many of the key factors that made the original enjoyable and exhilarating. Unfortunately, it's also bogged down by technical issues, janky mechanics, and a restrictive save system that prevents you from readily seeing outcomes.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human may begin like the shuffling corpses you run into during the day, but evolves into the ferocious horde you encounter in the shadows of night. With an engaging gameplay loop of parkour and combat, the exploration of Villedor is something you’ll enjoy for hours on end, and with up to three friends at that. Yeah, it may take a little bit to get hooked, but once you’re infected, it’ll be all you can do to stay human.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is an entertaining game with enjoyable characters and fun parkour elements. Unfortunately a lot doesn't hold up to scrutiny. If what you're after is more Dying Light though, then this is your game.
You may not want to spend the 500 hours that Techland suggested is possible playing Dying Light 2, completing every little thing, but there's easily a good 60 hours or so of story and side activities to partake in.
When every aspect of Dying Light 2 comes together, it's an experience to behold, but the problem is that it happens so rarely that the game struggles to justify the price of admission.
Pushing past the first couple hours of clumsy stumbling around and getting to grips with the parkour mechanics and Dying Light 2 becomes a pleasure to play. Being able to take any path from A to B is extremely rewarding, and it only improves as skills and such are unlocked. Players are kept on their toes, literally – at least in game, by the stark differences between day and night. There is a serious amount of content, with side missions and areas to explore on top of the meaty main campaign. Much like the original Techland has already promised years of content and, with 3 patches already released (including a day 0 patch) there is no doubting it'll keep fans pleased and playing for hours upon hours upon hours.
Techland has managed to create something more important than just another well-written video game. Behold, a convincing open world that encourages you to discover its secrets and provides lots of fun, regardless of what you’re doing. Dying Light 2 isn’t perfect, but it perfectly makes up for its few flaws. A sequel better than the original!
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Techland has a hit on its hands with Dying Light 2! While the game has been a long time coming, it is a fun, enjoyable game that features well-written characters and great world-building, along with some amazing parkour. However, the combat can be repetitive, voice lines constantly repeat and there’s a few concerns regarding the bugs I encountered. Other than that, Dying Light 2 is solid.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is often let down by clumsy writing, unbalanced progression, clunky combat, and technical issues, but its excellent parkour, engaging choice and consequence mechanics, and the expertly realized threat of the Infected make for a fun open world free-running romp nonetheless.
Dying Light 2 faces two big issues at present: technical glitches that can be fixed with a patch, and design choices that will be harder to deal with.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is a bold, doubling-down of all the elements that made the first game great, while also making ambitious strides in its open-world gameplay and branching narrative elements.
Anybody familiar with Dying Light's design can see how bad an idea this is from miles off, and obviously part of the team did because this is the exact moment that the game introduces fast travel. But it doesn't matter. It was in Breath of the Wild. And that's one of the best games ever made.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a solid step-up from Dying Light in almost every way. Still, its increased emphasis on storytelling feels entirely misguided to the point where it's narratively worse than Dying Light. Despite this, Dying Light 2 has fantastic traversal, satisfying combat, and some great quest design and variety that makes it Techland's best.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a more than worthy follow up and worth the wait. Whilst not necessarily reinventing the wheel, it excels in being one of the best versions of the open-world formula we’ve known for some time. With silky-smooth parkour and combat mechanics, and plenty of things to see and do, I highly recommend the plunge into The City. Where there’s slight polishing to still be done and the story at times leaves a bit to be desired, shining moments and performances make it all the more worthwhile, standing as a stronger entry than its predecessor. This has become my favourite free roam zombie game to date and has me constantly itching to jump back in and tool around some more in its playground. Not bloody bad, Techland.
By trying to wrestle with a mixture of parkour/stealth/combat mechanics, a large open world, and reactive storytelling within a rotund narrative, it starts to buckle from its lesser elements and annoying technical problems.
Fun is subjective, of course, but when it comes to video games, we mostly play them for the fun or the experience it offers.