You Really Should Play Dying Light 2 Before The Beast
To say that Dying Light 2 is a divisive game would be putting it lightly. There’s plenty of discourse surrounding this game ever since its initial release back in 2022. However, for me personally, this is an experience that has stuck with me ever since I started to learn how to jump. I’m not here to dispel the arguments against this game, as there’s a lot I actually happen to agree with. However, at the end of the day there’s something so euphoric about Dying Light 2’s athletic combat system. Techland has turned Dying Light 2 from a rather primitive experience to a parkour power fantasy and I cannot recommend it enough, especially if The Beast has your interest.
Dying Light: The Beast aims to shift the spotlight from Kyle Crane being afraid of the zombies to the zombies being afraid of Crane, who happens to be you. After being subjected to countless experiments against your own will, you break free with one goal in mind: revenge. From what we’ve seen so far, The Beast looks to take every element from both Dying Light entries to provide the most visceral combat experience yet. Crane's own two hands can do just as much damage as any crafted weapon. While we wait, that’s where Dying Light 2 comes in and the evolution this game has had ever since its 2022 release is truly marvelous in my opinion.
To illustrate my perspective, I have been playing Dying Light 2 since launch. I’ve played the game in its launch state and loved it then. I have seen and felt the transformation this game has undergone and it’s staggering. I’ve seen the good updates, and the very poorly received updates, but the game that you can purchase on any storefront now (on sale as of the time of this article) is the best possible version it has ever been.
I initially played the game on console and at the time the Aiden’s (DL2’s MC) voice actor, Jonah Scott, was going to be at a convention in my city later that summer. It was an anime convention so he was there to represent the Netflix Anime Beastars (he voices the main character, Legoshi) above all else as that was the main demographic. However, when I approached him about Dying Light 2, he was simply ecstatic. He signed my copy of the game, literally. He signed the box, the manual, and the disc.
So what is it that I like about Dying Light 2 so damn much? For me, it’s the game’s idea of freedom from both navigation to its combat. Parkour at its most basic definition is getting from point A to point B however you see fit. There’s no ‘right’ way to get there, it just matters that you get there. Whether you’re in Old Villedor or The Central Loop, every section of the map is designed to be interconnected to where you can always find a way to get wherever it is you need to go.
Very often I see the parkour described as “floaty”, and while I don’t disagree I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing. Aiden feels much more nimble than Crane does, but I think it perfectly accentuates the game’s sense of speed and agility, especially considering that there are plenty of new traversal methods to take advantage of, such as a paraglider for hopping off of rooftops or taking flight via vents. Without tools though, Aiden is very quick on his feet, it always feels like he’s walking on his toes. However, when you get used to how he handles and you are able to clear sections of the city without thinking I honestly can’t say I felt this one to one with my character’s movement since Mirror’s Edge back in 2008, or even the first Dying Light.
When Dying Light 2 first released it was a game of a lot of compromises and it didn’t settle well with a lot of players. For example, guns were taken out of the equation entirely in exchange for makeshift bows. There was a huge emphasis on the story and how your actions would shape the state of the world. But, sadly people weren’t huge fans of the narrative, parkour moves were tied to stamina, the combat lacked a lot of strategy as it devolved into being stunlocked via a grab or projectile, and the worst part is nighttime was arguably easier than the daytime which negates the whole point of the threatening day/night cycle.
There’s been a very recent patch, released in August of 2025 (yes three years after release) where stamina has been finally been tweaked. In short, parkour actions don’t require any stamina which fully opens up movement capabilities. This means stamina is only going to be needed in combat, allowing anyone to fully explore Villedor the second the city opens up. This is a pretty big change to the core gameplay, but this is leaning into the idea of that power fantasy I brought up earlier.
Techland has taken these critiques of Dying Light 2 and have crafted one of the most fun zombie sandboxes to explore and fight around in. Firearms are now available and they’re immensely fun to use. Zombies and even humans can be stunned for one of many brutal execution animations. Everything from the way you swing or fire a weapon, leap across buildings, you can’t help but feel like a post-apocalyptic Spider-Man sometimes especially if you utilize the grappling hook during combat.
Every move you have can be combined into one another. If a zombie is running at you, grapple it into the wall and have it get knocked onto the ground before you stomp on its brains. You can shoulder charge a group of zombies off a building or into a trap that’s set. If you want to be fancy with the kicks and punches you can, or you can just pick up a shotgun and start blasting.
Of course that all doesn’t mean much if the game wasn’t fun to control but everything feels so damn fluid and the feedback from your actions has been amplified. Cutting off a head you’re greeted with a geyser of blood. Taking a giant hammer to a group, you can hear every bone getting smashed. Should the action get to be too much, you can very easily run away and regroup. There’s just such a gratifying combat loop to this game and due to how good it feels to hit things with a gun or a bat, I always found it a joy to fight.
Now in terms of what you can do in the game, you have the entire city to explore and scavenge, the main story and all the various side quests, the Bloody Ties DLC, Survivor Missions which are fun little co-op side missions which has its own progression and rewards (guns wink wink), challenges, there’s plenty here to keep you busy for quite a while especially until The Beast.
This is clearly not a super comprehensive review or analysis of Dying Light 2, this is me encouraging you, dear reader, that if this game has ever had your attention then you should absolutely give it a shot. As of the time of writing, Dying Light 2 is on sale on Steam. If there ever was a time to check it out and get hooked into this world, once again it is now. With Dying Light The Beast soon on the horizon, there’s no better time to get your shoes dirty by sprinting across the rooftops to squeeze a zombie’s eyes into its own brain. Trust me, it’s even better than it sounds.
