Dying Light

First-person open-world action-adventure Dying Light allows you to fully immerse yourself in a zombie apocalypse. You can expect character progression, role-playing elements, a large open world, and dynamic day-night cycles.

During the day, you will explore the metropolis in search of supplies, equipment, and items to craft weapons. The arsenal includes axes, knives, bats, hammers, and more exotic items, as well as weapons for long-range enemy elimination. At night, dangerous creatures emerge — infected inhabitants and deadly predators, from which you will have to fend off until the first rays of dawn.

Dying Light is set in the fictional Middle Eastern metropolis of Harran. Traditional low-rise buildings coexist with mid-rise panels, high-rises, and a couple of skyscrapers. The map design even considers the economy — there are slums, simple high-rises, and brick houses, as well as elite areas with mansions and towers.

The developers have detailed most of the houses inside, and you can enter any building in the game, but the larger it is, the more likely some areas will be inaccessible. There are also suburbs and large open spaces.

Harran looks as if life in it stopped at rush hour — there are many cars on the streets, some highways are jammed, and construction cranes are frozen waiting for work. At the time of the game's events, the city is in complete disrepair, with some buildings burning or partially destroyed.

A feature of the city is the possibility of quick movement — any vertical ledge can be used as a platform to jump or cling to, cables are stretched everywhere, and the character uses a grappling hook to latch onto any point.

The main threat in Dying Light is aggressive zombies, each with different behavior patterns. They are often in a stupor, but if disturbed, they go berserk and attack.

This is where parkour comes in handy — the hero jumps on rooftops, slides through gaps, clings to walls, and uses fences and buildings as natural barriers to avoid being eaten alive. If you have to fight zombies, there is a whole arsenal at your disposal.

Weapons in Dying Light are divided into three types: melee (axes, bats, machetes, circular saws), throwable (bows and arrows, bombs, grenades), and firearms (pistols, rifles, shotguns). Each is useful for a specific situation: it's easier to kill zombies from a distance with firearms, at close range with melee weapons, and in hand-to-hand combat, you can fend them off with your hands and feet.

The protagonist also uses various gear (shields, armor) and equipment (medkits, potions, lockpicks), which can be bought from NPCs or crafted from collected loot.

The combat system's feature is the ability to upgrade weapons, gear, and equipment. For this, blueprints are scattered throughout the game world (they can also be obtained from merchants or by completing quests). The most options are available for melee weapons: for example, a hammer can become an unstoppable weapon of destruction, gaining an area damage effect with additional electric damage.

Zombies are an important part of the gameplay. In solo play, there are ten types of zombies, ranging from regular "infected" to more powerful "brutes" and dangerous "jumpers." The former often do not pose much of a threat even in large numbers. Meanwhile, three-meter "demolishers" break everything in their path, and due to their mass, they take a long time to defeat.

The most dangerous zombies, "jumpers," will chase the player across rooftops and buildings, delivering multiple hits per attack, possessing high health, and being incredibly fast. Most of the time, the player is forced to run away from them rather than fight.

The game begins some time after the spread of an unknown virus, when most survivors have scattered, and the few remaining are fending off hordes of zombies.

The main character, undercover agent Kyle Crane, is deployed in Harran to obtain data on the virus research and prevent local radical terrorists from turning it into a biological weapon.

Everything immediately goes off-plan — Kyle is ambushed and bitten by a zombie, but at the last moment, he is saved by a community of survivors defending themselves from zombies and bandits. He needs to complete his mission, for which he decides to stay and become the best among the runner-parkourists.

Although the events of Dying Light are told in several spectacularly staged acts, they focus on action — kill this, steal that, run there, and defeat the main bandit. As the game progresses, the player will encounter a dozen secondary characters who serve as background, with only the antagonist making any effort to act.

Techland's writers have gathered a maximum of clichés — the invincible main character; the villainous villain who loves to talk; the girlfriend in the "damsel in distress" role; contrived difficulties just to move the story forward; problems with logic and character motivation; exceptional predictability of events and lack of plot twists.

If you set aside the story, Dying Light is a classic "entertain yourself" attraction, with plenty of activities and things to do: you can explore the game world and look into every house, kill many zombies and improve your skills, search for valuable items and upgrade weapons, or complete quests.

Even basic mechanics, such as movement and combat, are a kind of mini-game. In the dense urban environment, it's interesting to determine routes and use all parkour possibilities, making you forget about fast travel.

When surrounded by a horde of zombies, you need to combine different combat styles and parkour, with firearms being far from the most convenient option. Each zombie has its weaknesses, knowledge of which allows for much faster kills.

The day-night cycle significantly changes the gameplay — initially, most tasks have to be completed during the day while zombies are "dormant," as they become more aggressive and stronger at night, with much more dangerous mutants emerging from their lairs. The same "jumper" can ruin the player's plans and chase them back to a safe zone.

The main goal is to develop your character. There is a leveling system and a simple RPG system. When the character kills zombies, searches the area, creates new weapons, and completes NPC tasks, they gain experience, which accumulates into levels. За каждый уровень дают очки, которые можно потратить на новые способности в категориях «акробатика», «сила» и «выживание».

Ролевой отыгрыш обеспечивается системой динамичных встреч – все не сюжетные события происходят в случайных местах и определяются случайным образом. Игроку придется помогать кому-то или уничтожать кого-то, а если проигнорировать просьбы NPC, то это скажется на состоянии Харрана.

В Dying Light можно проходить сюжет или просто проводить время в игровом мире в командах до четырех человек. Соединение устанавливается через меню, пригласивший становится хостом (требуется пройти пролог).

Во время сюжетных миссий игроки получают общий набор ключевых предметов и вместе смотрят одни и те же ролики, так что нет нужды каждому играть отдельно. Что касается приключений в игровом мире, то они аналогичны действиям в сольном прохождении, но гораздо веселее, так как поиск лута, исследование опасных зон и издевательства над зомби даются гораздо легче.

Также есть асинхронный режим, когда команде игроков-людей противостоит игрок-зомби. Но не обычный, а «ночной охотник» — самый опасный подвид, усиленный способностью видеть во тьме, быстро перемещаться на огромные расстояния и убивать с одного удара.

Людям для победы нужно уничтожить специальные «гнезда», в то время как зомби – перебить всех людей не подставляясь под огонь и ультрафиолет.