Dying Light 2: Stay Human Reviews
Indeed, if, like me, you have a weakness for the zombie-hued, and for the sway and flail of first-person platforming, then Dying Light 2 is easy to recommend.
Some will find it agreeably smooth, I’m sure, but you can only sand so much off of chaos before it becomes ordinary. Come the real zombie apocalypse we should all be so lucky to face a world this trudgingly well behaved.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human combines a branching narrative, a massive open world and satisfying first-person parkour. It's a potent mixture, but repetitive combat and serious technical issues often spoil the fun.
Open world zombie Dying Light 2 from Techland nails its parkour traversal mechanics, but unfortunately gets little else right.
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.
Initially, I was concerned Dying Light 2 wouldn't find its own voice in a world crammed with shallow open worlds designed for busy work rather than fun, but the more I played, the more I found that wasn't the case. Dying Light 2 truly shines with its high-stakes nighttime gameplay, which turns the modern and tired open-world formula on its head. While some of the writing isn't the best and next-gen console performance is a bit disappointing, Dying Light 2 offers a tight experience that builds on the original.
If you've played a zombie game in the past decade, this mishmash of tattered post-apocalyptic stereotypes will feel all too familiar
Dying Light 2 is a game with a troubled development, and unfortunately, it shows. I know how much the first game grew significantly over the years with patches and content updates, and I can only hope that this one gets as much support, because it still needs a lot of work before it becomes the game we were first promised back in 2018, if ever.
Techland's horror sequel features crunchy combat and thrilling parkour, but buries its best bits with a clumsy story and open-world excess
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is another exhilarating parkour and zombie-pummeling playground from Techland, although at times, the seams holding it all together are a bit obvious. Given the game's glitches, minor gameplay annoyances, and crudely bisected story and world, reports of behind-the-scenes issues feel all-too-plausible. That said, the foundation here is rock solid, and Techland has proven they're capable long-term builders, so I'm confident Dying Light 2's embers can be stoked to a full flame in time.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human has been a long time coming, and thankfully it's worth the wait. I loved the time I spent exploring Villedor; finding random events and scaling buildings took me back to the old days of Assassins Creed II. While I wish I wasn't being timed on the occasions I went into a dark building or decided to explore at night, it's a minor issue to overlook when most of the game is so brilliantly executed and fun to play.
Dying Light 2 is a super solid follow-up to the 2015 original, building upon its fantastic gameplay loop with new traversal options for even more parkour fun. It's extremely disappointing, however, that the narrative and open world promises Techland made in the lead up to launch haven't been realised. Your choices don't have nearly as much impact as we would like, and the map is much more rigid than pre-release footage would have you believe. Still, Dying Light 2 feels awesome and empowering to play, and that can go a long way.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is more than a sequel — it’s an evolution that keeps everything that is integral to the franchise intact, but builds on it with enough engaging content that it’s incredibly hard to stop playing.
As with the original game, Dying Light 2 Stay Human will find its share of audience, while the teams at Techland will continue to expand their vision. The solid base is already there, and it would be interesting to see how the game will turn out in 5 years time.
Review in Russian | Read full review
I’ve loved my time with Dying Light 2. While it undoubtedly could use a patch or two, the foundation that’s been laid for the next five years is solid.
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.
After six years of waiting and promising, the final version of Dying Light: Stay Human unfortunately does not look like what we had seen and foreshadowed a very great potential game.
Review in French | Read full review
With a beautiful open world, great narrative side missions, and enough tension to raise even the calmest player's blood pressure, Dying Light 2 wrings a mountain of slick fun out of the most dire of settings. Scary to play solo and a ton of fun in multiplayer, Dying Light 2 will keep you entertained for a long time with its fantastic mission structure and groundbreaking day/night mechanics. It took a while, but Dying Light 2 was worth the wait.