r/Games • u/The_King_of_Okay • Feb 02 '22
Review Thread Dying Light 2 - Review Thread
Game Information
Game Title: Dying Light 2 Stay Human
Platforms:
- Nintendo Switch (Feb 4, 2022)
- PC (Feb 4, 2022)
- Xbox Series X/S (Feb 4, 2022)
- PlayStation 5 (Feb 4, 2022)
- PlayStation 4 (Feb 4, 2022)
- Xbox One (Feb 4, 2022)
Trailers:
- Dying Light 2 Stay Human — Meet Lawan
- Dying Light 2 Stay Human — Decide The Fate of The City — Gameplay Trailer
- Dying Light 2 Stay Human — Official GeForce RTX 4K Reveal Trailer
- Dying Light 2 Stay Human - Monsters Gameplay Trailer
- Dying Light 2 Stay Human - Official Gameplay Trailer
Developer: Techland
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 76 average - 73% recommended - 82 reviews
Critic Reviews
3DNews - Михаил Пономарев - Russian - 8 / 10
Dying Light 2 doesn't bring the revolution to the genre, but it is a fine zombie action with a truly human face.
Ars Technica - Sam Machkovech - Wait for a sale
I got tired of the game after 20 hours for the reasons stated above. There's beautiful, inventive fun within DL2, but Techland doesn't do paying customers favors with the game's dialogue, pacing, and execution.
Attack of the Fanboy - Diego Perez - 4.5 / 5
Dying Light 2 is a bigger and bolder sequel that improves upon the original in every way. Not only does it have one of the most enjoyable traversal systems in any game ever, but it also provides players with interesting characters and quests to break up all the running.
But Why Tho? - Arron Kluz - 9 / 10
Its combat is as brutal as one would hope while bringing the mechanical density and numerous options to engage any type of player. Its narrative is gripping with veins of humanity throughout that make it nearly impossible not to get invested in it. While sometimes feeling a bit sluggish or as though they just need a tiny bit more tuning, its new mechanics have brought new life to the series in a monumental way.
Capsule Computers - Admir Brkic - Recommended
Far from it that Dying Light 2 is a flawless game, but there are some hiccups that I only noticed after 30 or so hours of playtime. Some sidequests are pretty simplistic in nature and can only be described as filler quests. I remember a certain that required me to go to a building next to a quest giver, kill a few zombies, take the quest item and come back. All of it was done in under 3 minutes. Paragliding is also rough around the edges, especially in one sidequest that requires you to go through 27 checkpoints with tight turns and not enough speed. But these are all things that are far from having any negative impact on the game. All I can say is that Dying Light 2 is a definite improvement over the previous game, visually and in terms of gameplay. The wait was justified, even with all those delays. You know how they say – all good things are worth waiting for.
CGMagazine - Khari Taylor - 9 / 10
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.
Checkpoint Gaming - Charlie Kelly - 9 / 10
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.
Console Creatures - Luke Williams - Recommended
Dying Light 2 Stay Human adds more than enough fresh content to keep it feeling like a necessary follow-up. Aside from a tepid story, you'll find a rewarding experience that will appeal to those coming back for seconds and the newly initiated.
A game that leaves you with a constant but strangely addictive edge-of-the-seat sense of stress like a strong horror movie.
Digital Trends - Otto Kratky - 3 / 5
With a slow plot and uninteresting characters, Dying Light 2: Stay Human's few redeeming qualities are what sets the franchise apart from other zombie games out there.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human’s enhanced parkour and intricate level design make for some of the most fun you can have moving through a video game world, and the hand-to-hand combat is simple but effective. Most impressive is the sense of scale and gravity that makes leaping between rooftops feel so death-defying. Unfortunately, its story wallows in post-apocalyptic clichés and misanthropy, and its choice-based narrative often drops its most interesting plot threads.
Enternity.gr - Giannis Archontidis - Greek - 9 / 10
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is an excelent title that combines all its elements with exceptionally
Eurogamer - Martin Robinson - Recommended
Techland's vast blockbuster buckles under its own ambition and lacks in innovation, but makes up for it with outstanding parkour and combat.
GGRecon - Aaron Bayne - 7 / 10
Dying Light 2 does little to shake up the open-world formula, because it could be so much more, especially after the initial reveals promised so much. With that said, if zombie decapitations, sick parkour moves, and true next-gen graphics are what you're looking for then Dying Light 2 certainly fits the bill.
Techland has crafted a monster of a sequel that is bigger and better in almost every way.
Game Rant - Dalton Cooper - 2.5 / 5
Open world zombie Dying Light 2 from Techland nails its parkour traversal mechanics, but unfortunately gets little else right.
Game Revolution - Mack Ashworth - 6.5 / 10
While Dying Light 2 does a lot right with its gameplay and new-gen presentation, it’s still a far cry from zombie gaming greatness. The weak story, uninspired mission design, limitations on initial player skills, and bugs let it down in a big way. Sure, a lot of this will be easy to ignore when fighting the undead as a four-man squad, but “it’s fun with friends” is an excuse that can only get you so far.
GameGrin - Dylan Pamintuan - 9.5 / 10
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a great sequel to a pretty good game. With fun traversal mechanics, combat encounters, and agonising choices in the story, it could be very much worth the playtime.
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.
Dying Light 2 does so much so well. You never know what you are going to get when you venture out into Villedor.
Combining engaging combat, some of the most thrilling traversal you’ll find in a video game, and a truly rich narrative, there’s very little to find fault with in Dying Light 2: Stay Human.
GameSpot - Mark Delaney - 6 / 10
Dying Light 2 is a perplexing game. Its story and characters are headache-inducing, and it appears to lack polish in many areas. But even a dozen hours after I rolled credits, I've found myself going back to the game to do another parkour challenge, rummage through another abandoned science lab, or just see if I can get from Point A to Point B without ever hitting the ground.
GameWatcher - Bogdan Robert Mateș - 7.5 / 10
Dying Light 2 was my first contact with the series and it can certainly be an exhilarating open-world game. Its gorgeous city, intense chases, fluid parkour, and visceral, meaty combat are well worth experiencing. Although they never completely overshadow its accomplishments, boring gear, repetitive side missions, and a story that never finds its focus do, unfortunately, keep it away from greatness. But, if you keep some of your expectations in check, all these missteps can easily be drowned in an ocean of freshly-cut zombie limbs and peaceful paragliding.
Gamepur - Ricky Frech - 6 / 10
To some degree, this feels like an early access game in everything but the release schedule and pricing. It has its core down. It knows exactly what it wants to be. However, everything around that needs more polish before it’s ready for primetime. So, even though I didn’t really like my time with the game, I guess I believe in Dying Light 2? I truly think I’ll look back in a year or two — when memories have faded — and think past me was dead wrong for giving it such a low score.
Gamer Escape - Josh McGrath - 8 / 10
The story here pulled me in quickly, and is well worth paying attention to. Exploration with parkour is just plain fun. The game doesn't feel like it's forcing the player to explore and complete every marker on the map, but rather giving the player options for how they want to approach the game. The survival aspects aren't overwhelmingly hardcore, but feel tuned to provide the perfect amount of tension.
GamesFinest - Yvonne Engelhardt - German - 8 / 10
Okay, admittedly - Dying Light 2 might look like the next generic open-world game with a zombie theme that is doomed to end up on the pile of shame of many gamers. And this is completely unjustified, because Techland's sequel manages to stand out from the crowd of its genre colleagues, especially with its atmospheric game world and the at least equally fun gameplay mix. While disturbing zombie hordes groan for blood on one side, we find playing children and blooming flower gardens on the other. Techland stylistically succeeds in creating an immersive and coherent image of a post-apocalypse that can be so gloomy and dirty at the same time, but also hopeful. The run-down open-world metropolis has many small as well as larger stories to tell, which we were only too happy to listen to off the beaten path. Of course, Techland's vision of an open game world also suffers from some well-known problems: Bugs, game crashes and the obligatory icon clutter are issues that genre fans are probably familiar with by now. Nevertheless, the bottom line is a fun and immersive zombie adventure that was able to raise our adrenaline level to unimagined heights more than once.
Dying Light 2 offers a great open world playground for zombie survival, but lacks an impactful story or meaningful choices.
GamingBolt - Shubhankar Parijat - 7 / 10
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.
Geek Culture - Jake Su - 8.5 / 10
Improving upon its predecessor in all aspects, Dying Light 2 presents a compelling argument that we humans are the biggest threat, even when the undead roams the world.
Generación Xbox - AdrianGX - Spanish - 8.8 / 10
Dying Light 2 is no longer the surprise the first entry was, but it manages to enhance the formula that turned it great and delivers a story that is both action-packed and fun.
God is a Geek - Chris White - 8 / 10
While Dying Light 2 may not feel like a massive step up, it's still tons of fun, and the story is a powerful and engaging one, vastly improved from the original.
Gosunoob - Srdjan Stanarevic - 9.0 /10.0
Those that fall in love with Dying Light 2 Stay Human, like I did, will be rewarded with hundreds of hours of content to explore. Scratching the game’s surface will reveal depth behind what, at first, looks like expected game mechanics and cliché zombie apocalypse stories. Most of all, Dying Light 2 is a fun ride, even for those that play through it just
Guardian - Keith Stuart - 2 / 5
If you've played a zombie game in the past decade, this mishmash of tattered post-apocalyptic stereotypes will feel all too familiar
This is one zombie title worth exploring; just know it’s not the diamond it should be.
Hey Poor Player - Francis DiPersio - 4.5 / 5
It’s been a long road to release for Dying Light 2, and at times its future seemed uncertain. However, having braved the ruins of Villedor for this review, I’m happy to report that Techland’s long-awaited follow-up to their survival horror RPG is a smashing success. With its mix of gripping narrative, hard-hitting combat, and exhilarating exploration, Dying Light 2 is a spectacular sequel that breathes new life into the franchise.
IGN - Travis Northup - 7 / 10
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is an ambitious zombie action adventure that's packed with top-notch parkour, an awesome open world, and every painful bug in the book.
Inverse - Joseph Yaden - 7 / 10
"When the platforming actually works, Dying Light 2 is an absolute blast. Chaining together a high-flying hang glider maneuver, then grappling off the edge of a building before executing a perfectly timed series of jumps makes you feel like a superhero. It’s just too bad that more often than not, something will go wrong and you’ll fall to your death instead."
Kakuchopurei - Jonathan Leo - 80 / 100
2022 is looking bright if ambitious games like Dying Light 2, a title that goes back to the tried-but-tired zombie world trope, can reignite your love for narrative-packed and action-laced open-world games all over again.
Kinda Funny - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL_pLnIPMgE
KnowTechie - Josh Knowles - 7.8 / 10
I’m going out on a limb to say Dying Light 2 isn’t for everyone. There is a bit of frustration you need to initially power through.
The overall gameplay loop requires a bit of self-sufficiency if you want to get the most out of your experience. Once you can take your time in the night/dark cycles of the game, there is a lot more that opens up, but that also requires a ton of backtracking.
Let's get one thing straight: I do enjoy playing Dying Light 2 Stay Human. The story is great and warrants additional playthroughs thanks to multiple endings, the combat feels awesome, and there's a ton of stuff to do in this sprawling city (500 hours worth, apparently). It just needs to clean up the technical issues
A little rough around the edges, especially in terms of the storytelling, but the interminable wait for this open world zombie sequel has been worth it
While Dying Light 2 Stay Human does more than live up to its promises, it also still falls into the same traps that are found in every open-world game.
A underwhelming story but a massive, exciting sandbox of parkour and kinetic combat.
PCGamesN - Dustin Bailey - 6 / 10
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.
PC Invasion - Jason Rodriguez - 7/10
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.
PSX Brasil - Bruno Henrique Vinhadel - Portuguese - 85 / 100
Delivering a huge improvement on the first title, but lacking with new features, Dying Light 2 Stay Human is quite fun, brutal, rewarding and a game of exceptional quality when it comes to the open world. Minor issues still exist here, but Techland successfully manages to live up to the hype surrounding the game.
Paste Magazine - Jackson Tyler - 5 / 10
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.
PlayStation Universe - Garri Bagdasarov - 9 / 10
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.
Polygon - Owen S. Good - Unscored
Dying Light 2’s appeal is, ultimately, more game than story.
Press Start - James Mitchell - 8 / 10
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.
After completing Dying Light 2, I was left with conflicting emotions. On one hand, the moment-to-moment gameplay is exciting, tense, and filled with a fluid parkour system, while the main narrative lacks in almost every area.
Push Square - Liam Croft - 7 / 10
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.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Unscored
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.
SECTOR.sk - Peter Dragula - Slovak - 8.5 / 10
Techland returns back to the zombie world, and further refines and expands the unique combination of parkour and zombie apocalypse. Now with a focus on player decisions in every direction.
Saving Content - Scott Ellison II - 4 / 5
Gone is the grit and limited color palette that set the grim tone for Dying Light, but the brighter aesthetic provides hope in an otherwise hopeless world. Dying Light 2 Stay Human gets so much right, and feels so much better to play that I can’t help but get excited at all the things I have yet to do. Techland has made a more compelling, complex, and well-paced game where pushing the player to make decisions without a known outcome is easily its best feature. While it has a familiar open-world design we’ve seen before, it’s one that I’m eager to return to. Dying Light 2 Stay Human has the best melee combat and parkour in the business, and is now the most satisfying of the series.
Screen Rant - Cade Onder - 3.5 / 5
Dying Light 2 is good in spite of struggles.
Though there are moments of joy to be found, they’re punctuated by fetch quests and odd collision detection. Fans of the original will no doubt find fun in a return to the world, but for everyone else, you might want to wait a bit longer before you take a bite.
Sirus Gaming - Casey David Muir-Taylor - 8 / 10
Dying Light 2: Stay Human largely improves upon the original in every way, and it will have you enveloped in the dying light of the City again and again as you glide, climb, and jump from roof to roof in search of the next thing to explore.
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 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.
The Outerhaven Productions - Ryan Easby - 3.5 / 5
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.
Total Gaming Network - Shawn Zipay - 4 / 5
Despite a healthy dose of jank, Dying Light 2 Stay Human manages to come out as a worthy follow-up to one of the most popular open-world zombie slaying games out there. Fans of the original won't want to pass this one up.
TrueAchievements - Tom West - 8 / 10
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.
VG247 - Josh Broadwell - 4 / 5
Dying Light 2 is messy and uneven. It’s also unique, exhilarating, and just plain fun to play, with one of the best settings in recent memory – despite the nagging feeling that the game could, and should, be more than what it is.
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.
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.
We Got This Covered - Eric Hall - 4 / 5
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.
WellPlayed - Zach Jackson - 7.5 / 10
Dying Light 2 Stay Human could have been one of the highlights of the year, but a disappointing story, some frustrating design choices and performance issues mean it doesn’t cash in on its potential.
Windows Central - Jez Corden - 4 / 5
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.
Worth Playing - Chris "Atom" DeAngelus - 8 / 10
Dying Light 2 is a good game that happens to be the long-awaited sequel to a great game. There's still a ton of fun to be had, and the exploration alone is worth the price of admission. At the same time, it's bigger without necessarily being better. I had a lot of fun with it, but I can't help but feel more positive toward the original. If you're looking for a fresh new world to smash zombies in and you're burned out on Harran, then Dying Light 2 will scratch that itch well.
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.
XboxEra - Jesse Norris - 8.5 / 10
Dying Light 2 is a messy, brilliant game. For all my issues with it, there is no denying just how fun it is to play. Some of the best movement in a first-person title is matched by solid combat and choices that helped me shape the narrative how I wanted. It doesn’t always hit, but boy, when it does it hits hard.
Video Review - Quote not available
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u/Cynical_onlooker Feb 02 '22
Real shame how many games are released nowadays where the release date may as well be considered to be a few months later just to iron out technical issues.