Deadlight: Director's Cut Reviews
While it fulfils its promise of delivering a much needed edge to the saturated zombie horror scene, Deadlight: Director's Cut is sadly hampered by its clunky combat system and recycled puzzles. Existing players may feel compelled to delve back into the experience as its visuals feel noticeably refined and its survival mode – although flawed – can be addictive in small doses. But although it's brimming with fresh ideas and possesses a compelling atmosphere, it isn't able to stand tall as it rests on a ground of flawed fundamentals.
Deadlight: Director’s Cut is a beautiful yet twisted game that feels confident in its own skin. It’s a game that offers more than slaying the undead, as the amazing art direction and compelling story was enough to keep me invested until the credits rolled. Even with some questionable combat choices and the odd spikes in difficulty, Deadlight is a game that breathes new life into the zombie genre.
Deadlight: Director's Cut is worth a look if you're new to this post-apocalyptic tale. However, if you've already played through the game in its original state, there's little reason to return.
Despite being yet another zombie game, Deadlight still feels fresh and unique thanks to being played entirely on the 2D plane
It's not the longest game, and doesn't offer anything that will be remembered as a classic game by any means, but the tense atmosphere, striking art style, and challenge, will surely help this game find itself a niche.
If Deadlight has already been experienced years prior, I’m not so sure there is enough new content here to get players to pick it up for a second time. Though if zombies and “Prince of Persia” old school style gameplay are two things that players have interest in, Deadlight is worth a trip to Seattle. Just don’t expect it to be the most memorable or longest of journeys.
Impressively updated graphical prowess for a unique visual styling isn’t enough to save it from a myriad of cheaply laid gameplay issues. Deadlight’s problem was never its graphics. Its issues are more inherent to the four-year old gameplay design that doesn’t allow the player to feel responsible for getting themselves killed. Handing the player an axe that barely does a thing. Launching them into spike pits they don’t know they need to leap over. And technical issues with platforming that either stick players to walls or drop them into the waiting hungry hordes. Deadlight could have been a good game, and maybe four years ago I would have thought that it was, but players today expect a little bit more intelligent core game design in which death is a teaching moment rather than a cheap trick.
Deadlight: Director's Cut is just a port of Deadlight to the new consoles without much new added to it. Its the kind of thing that I'm not entirely sure why it needed to happen. If you've never played Deadlight before then you aren't missing much, and if you have then there's no reason to pick this up.
If you’re a die-hard fan of Deadlight, then you probably don’t even need to read a review to know whether or not to buy it, you’ll just do it anyway. For everyone else, this is an average game that has been surpassed in the years since it came out. There are far better 2D platformers available. You can give this one a miss.