Dying Light: First Impressions

If I had to describe Dying Light in a few words, I’d have to describe it as Dead Island: Adult edition. From the limited time that I have managed to put into Dying Light I have found it to be, in terms of survival horror, everything Dead Island should have been.

In Dead Island i never really felt any sort of real threat from the zombies. I could run, or walk, at my own pace without fear of being injured, really. Whereas in Dying Light, in most areas outside, i find that i need to constantly check my surroundings. What aids Dying Light in the regard is the way in which the city is constructed. The city is mostly close quarters and i would describe it as favela-esque. This gives you less space to manoeuvre, as well as several hidden directions for zombies to approach from. Dead Island, however, was very very open, and when you add in the option of vehicles, the threat of the zombies becomes almost nonexistent.

The story of Dying Light really is no better, or worse, than Dead Island, but it seems that there are only a limited number of angles you can approach zombie apocalypse from. However, Dying Light does seem to actively emphasis the ‘survival horror’ aspect a bit more than Dead Island. Dying Light is not ‘true’ survival horror in that you are never at risk of losing all your items as you would be in something like Fallout, however the zombies that appear at night are very powerful, and thus makes venturing out a night something of a risky business.

So far, I am enjoying the game very much. There are a lot of areas that it falls down in, mostly based around the story, but for the sake of gameplay and enjoyment it’s as good as, if not better, than the similarly handling games out at the moment such as Far Cry, which I can only see as a positive.

Conor M.