![]() Most of these weapons are pretty satisfying to use, with visceral feedback from the weighty camera movement, precise animations, and squelching sound effects as your hits stagger and whirl enemies around with the possibility of bloody dismemberment and shattered bones. The player can arm themselves with a number of melee weapons including one-handed cudgels, blades, knives and two-handed clubs, axes, and swords. They actually match the player’s running speed on the ground (Volatiles exceed it), so escaping is a matter of finding a more efficient vertical route than the AI pathfinding can acquire, which is one of the ways the game rewards mastery of its movement.įighting back is also a key part of gameplay. The player isn’t alone in their ability to clamber up walls and jump across gaps, however - while the basic Biter zombies shamble stupidly at street level, the rabid Viral runner type and their more threatening nighttime cousins in the Volatiles are just as capable at traversal and will chase the player relentlessly across city blocks. ![]() Oftentimes, the path to an objective is blocked off by barriers and locked doors, and a little bit of ingenuity is needed to find a way up and over a fence or through an open window from another rooftop awning. Early on, you’ll only have access to low quality weapons and gear and won’t have many options in combat, so jumping between rooftops is vital to survival. While Mirror’s Edge was just a linear path with some occasional choices about how to get around, Dying Light is an open world game that integrates movement into everything you do. Where the movement really gets points is how it’s connected into other aspects of gameplay. It doesn’t have the depth of Mirror’s Edge as it lacks a few mechanics like wallrunning and pole swinging and doesn’t require the player to manage momentum thanks to generous lateral air control, but it strikes a nice balance between more thoughtful platforming and total freedom of traversal with minimal player input. There’s a lot of work put into making it feel fluid with simulated camera movements and blended first-person animations, and I quickly got a feel for what was traversable and started to see the whole world as a massive playground. Moving around doesn’t require much player skill - it’s usually just a matter of pointing at a ledge and pressing the jump button where you’ll magnetize to nearby ledges and get large windows to queue inputs - but you do have to put a little bit of thought into how you’ll get around, especially when trying to move quickly. A few of these (vaulting over enemies, sliding from a sprint, forward roll, running up walls) are skills that you must acquire from a talent tree, which I’ll talk about later. Eventually you gain the ability to run up walls and spring off them. You can break any fall by landing on certain objects like trash piles or roof of a car, or by performing a forward roll. You can vault over short obstacles and enemies and slide under gaps from a sprint, and taking a running jump off of ramps seems to grant some vertical momentum. You can grab onto nearly any ledge that you’re pointed at, as well as hang onto ledges, posts, and other handholds and jump off in any direction. The movement is essentially the mantling mechanic you see in a lot of other games cranked up to 11. What’s so great about the gameplay, you ask? Primarily the parkour movement and first person melee combat, and how they’re tied into the other systems and level design. Though Dying Light was written off by many due to its clichés, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had for action gameplay enthusiasts. While I have a lot of balance complaints, the core loop is quite fun and addictive, and it’s even somewhat challenging and deep. Dying Light is by no means revolutionary, borrowing a lot of overplayed concepts from its contemporaries - open world, zombies, climbing, crafting, leveled loot, talent tree grinding - but puts them together in a coherent package with engaging gameplay that’s all executed rather well.
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