Dying Light: The Beast Reviews
Dying Light: The Beast has great parkour and melee combat, but a bland story and an uninteresting Beast Mode mechanic leave it fun, but ultimately forgettable.
While the actual ‘Beast’ elements of the game are a slight let down from a pure gameplay perspective it still feels good to hulk out without fear of falling in among the undead hordes. This, combined with easily the most diverse setting Dying Light has ever offered in Castor Woods and an overall tighter scope, makes The Beast another solid zombie game worth chewing through.
While more limited in scope than the mainline Dying Light titles, this side-quel ups the fun factor by giving the player a way to blow off steam with the addition of superpowers. Lighter in tone and with more room to breathe, Dying Light: The Beast puts just enough spin on the franchise's formula to keep from feeling like a retread. It turns out that the ability to stomp around and clear a room in 30 seconds was just what Dying Light needed.
The story won't win any awards, but thanks to well-rounded supporting characters and interesting missions, it makes the most of the revenge plot. The game world is smaller again, but offers plenty of variety with urban and rural areas. The nights feel truly dangerous again, even without a timer breathing down your neck.
Review in German | Read full review
Dying Light: The Beast is a serious gore-fest that, when you dig a little deeper, turns out to be a rather silly playground teeming with ingenius ways of dispatching the undead. The fun, for me, was finding them all, and while it may not stick with me for long, this is still the best that Dying Light has ever been.
If you're a zombie fanatic and your dream is to experience a believable, yet scenic, terrifying, and atmospheric undead apocalypse, Dying Light: The Beast is a title you shouldn't miss. Kyle Crane's story is a classic, at times a bit predictable, but there are many other survivors with more unique stories waiting to grip you in the numerous side missions hidden in Castor Woods.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Dying Light: The Beast attempts to reconnect with the original DNA that many players believed was altered by the second instalment. It features violent and impactful fights, an oppressive soundscape enhanced by Olivier Derivière's compositions, and stressful day/night cycles. This new Dying Light game defies convention to create an even stronger sense of immersion.
Review in French | Read full review
And the best part: if you enjoy playing with others, co-op makes it an even greater experience. So if you're into zombies, open worlds full of action and gore, you can already write this name down: The Beast is here to stay.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
In terms of quantity, Dying Light: The Beast deserves the upgrade to standalone release, having first been earmarked as DLC. It’s carried mostly by excellent game feel, combat and parkour as enjoyable as ever. However, its quality is where the game suffers, skimping on meaningful upgrades that would set it apart and push the franchise forward. It's worthy of your time, but otherwise a missed opportunity.
Dying Light: The Beast is a leaner, more cohesive expansion of the series' ideas so far. While it is more focused and the map embraces fun parkour, its smaller map and contained story may be a detriment to some.
Parkour feels more fluid than before, with sprinting through the city and rooftop traversal feeling super smooth (as long as you don’t get grabbed by an infected). Roger Craig Smith does a stellar job once again as Crane, and it was a blast getting to see his story continue. Unfortunately, a few performance issues and audio bugs lessened the experience, but overall, this is a great new entry to the franchise, and one Dying Light fans will be glad to have waited for.
Dying Light: The Beast is everything I wanted from Techland's return to the series. The combat is brutal and fun, the sandbox world is massive and rewarding to explore, and Beast Mode is an absolute highlight. I feel that this is still the best entry in the franchise and a must-play for fans of Dying Light.
Dying Light: The Beast is an incredible evolution in the series by bringing back the movement and weapon feel, and evolving them to feel more brutal feels incredible.
Dying Light: The Beast is a polished, well-crafted experience that builds on the franchise's strengths while adding new creative flourishes to its formula.
The decision to transform Dying Light 2’s second DLC into a full game was a right one. Dying Light: The Beast is a big, new adventure that blends well all the best parts of DL, DL2 and The Following. This is a game for all the fans of the franchise, and one that has a surprisingly cool story to tell.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Dying Light: The Beast is a ghost of a great franchise, competently executed but lacking the spark that once made it special. The game lacks the pioneering audacity of the original, and lacks the narrative ambition of the sequel. It's a grind that, despite its apparent dynamism, leads nowhere. On top of all this, the game was extremely rough at release, and some of its bugs remain unfixed.
While it doesn't reinvent the wheel, Dying Light: The Beast is a return to form while it makes up for anything it may lack with the glorious return of Kyle Crane.
Dying Light: The Beast plays like the greatest hits of the series' formula with its brutalist combat and slickest parkour yet, and the return of the terrifying night cycle, making it the best Dying Light experience yet.
Dying Light: The Beast feels pure and almost nostalgic, like a compilation that fuses together the experiences of the first two games. Even a decade later, that experience remains unique and vibrant.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Even the side missions, while not always excellent, offer good variety and sometimes surprise with the quality of the writing, managing to construct small narrative arcs that broaden the context and give depth to the game world.
Review in Italian | Read full review