Dying Light 2 Stay Human

A sequel to Dying Light featuring a new protagonist, characters, and setting, along with a new storyline that expands the game universe. The formula of "zombies, parkour, and survival," which made the original famous, has been revamped and many new mechanics have been added.

The prolonged development left Stay Human as a game of the PS4/XOne generation: primitive surface geometry, outdated particle and lighting systems, lack of diversity among plant models, zombies, characters, and enemies, and overall "blurry" graphics.

The world has experienced a catastrophe that engulfed Harran and its surroundings, while a developed vaccine halted the threat of new zombie outbreaks. However, secret experiments by scientists and the military on the Harran virus continued, and a new strain broke free from another laboratory, spreading across the planet and causing the collapse of human civilization.

As the world descended into darkness and chaos, in Villador—a fictional city somewhere in Europe—order was maintained. Due to the numerous laboratories, it was surrounded by an impenetrable wall in case of a zombie apocalypse inside, and the city remained unharmed during the outbreak outside. But happiness was short-lived. The prototype vaccine developed by local scientists was aerosolized within the city, causing many residents to turn into zombies and the vegetation to die.

The events of Stay Human begin 20 years after the outbreak in Harran and 10 years after the fall of Villador. By this time, there is no place on the planet that the cursed virus has not penetrated. Survivors are few and huddle in fortified settlements scattered over hundreds of kilometers. Brave adventurers, known as pilgrims, travel alone between them, completing tasks and delivering packages. Among them is the main character, Aiden Caldwell, who has come to Villador in search of his sister.

The open seamless world of Stay Human is twice the size of Harran and is entirely occupied by urban development, interspersed with cathedrals, hospitals, radio towers, skyscrapers, factories, and other points of interest, woven with a network of roads, highways, and subways. Even more volume is added by several levels of "verticality" and a significant portion of buildings accessible for interior exploration.

Everything is just beginning to fall into decay, allowing players to explore the architectural imagery of the city, run along facades and rooftops, and stroll through the streets. Villador is divided into two vast areas reflecting their essence: the Old Town with 18th-19th century courtyard wells and Central Loop with modern office and residential buildings. Nature does not wait and takes over the rooftops with vegetation, avoiding the poisoned surface.

Designers crafted Villador to ensure smooth movement and parkour: buildings stand with "solid facades," and stairs, cables, ropes, bars, and trampolines are placed for crossing vacant lots, with hooks for grappling hooks becoming available over time, along with paragliders and air trampolines. An excellent arena for freerunning.

At the start of the game, three major factions are fighting for control over the city: Rogue marauders "Renegades," freedom-loving hippies "Survivors," and heavily armed authoritarian "Pacifiers." Zombies flood the city, but they are more active at night, hiding during the day in dungeons and lower floors.

Despite the efforts and promises of Techland, the plot of Dying Light 2 falls short of the first part, lacking narrative logic, coherence of the story and gameplay, and is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The massive script and thousands of voiced dialogues without a plan turned out to be a set of quests and events. Only a small part of them will engage the narrative and evoke emotions.

There are many characters, but all are random companions: they will tell about themselves, their lives, their future plans, and disappear after completing a quest. Only the most charismatic friends will be remembered, with whom Aiden will spend a lot of time chatting. The antagonist is a stereotypical, utterly foolish character with a heap of contradictions, and the struggle against him in search of his sister turns into a soap opera by the end.

The dialogue system does not reveal its potential, offering a-la Fallout 4 a couple of lines and questions. The promised choice is illusory — everything either returns to the tracks or ends up with nothing. The ending, the state of the world, and the fate of the characters will be determined by a handful of key decisions.

The gang war for Villador, which Aiden gets embroiled in right at the beginning, remains somewhat in the background. The factions are stereotypical, lacking motivation and global goals; the script will immediately clarify who is good and who is bad. Communication with them boils down to the transfer of important objects, which the hero fixes while opening the city and completing side quests.

The atmosphere itself has changed. Survivors have come to terms with the risk of becoming zombies and have realized that life continues after the apocalypse. Campfire gatherings with a guitar, bars and drinks, simple joys of life, and a warm color palette in Stay Human have replaced the despair, fear, and catastrophe seen in Dying Light.

The gameplay of Stay Human is built with an eye on MMORPG, adapted for solo play. Everything that participates in gameplay has levels, ranks, or quality degrees; balance is managed by auto-leveling, and possible encounters are limited by the hero's development (it is impossible to defeat an enemy of a higher rank).

The protagonist's upgrade is divided into two branches — combat system and parkour; experience is accumulated during corresponding activities. But the necessary skill cannot be leveled up without developing stamina and health. As a result, gameplay unfolds in the second half of the game, and combat, where the main actions are available immediately, long surpasses parkour, which needs perks for smoothness and coherence to be effective.

There is a lot of equipment. Weapons, armor, gear, gadgets, consumables, and tools — all contain dozens of their own components (or blueprints for them), and they also need to be upgraded (up to 9 times!). Items and armor on the hero come with passive stats hinting at a particular build.

In search of resources and high-quality equipment, you will have to vacuum every inch. All collected resources go into a bottomless inventory, from which useful items can be crafted, but only according to recipes. They can be purchased from merchants, found in the open world, and the most valuable ones can be obtained by completing story and side quests.

The combat in Stay Human is a classic slasher. No firearms, just slashing, chopping, pounding, smashing, and breaking, although for variety, you can shoot with a bow and crossbow, throw Molotovs, and set mines. The arsenal is vast, and as you acquire more powerful options, weapons can be enhanced with elemental damage and equipped with several mods. Old combat techniques and new ones, like blocking or parrying attacks, now combine into combos and allow you to counter an entire crowd of enemies at once.

Parkour has been adjusted to be more realistic. The hero has weight, actions have inertia, movement has a stamina reserve, and all super abilities—like double jumps, wall running, and hovering in the air—are explained by the lore. There are also parkour puzzles—you need to run at a certain pace and apply the right abilities.

Combat and parkour are constantly needed in freeplay. During the day, human enemies pour into the city, also skilled in close combat, blocking, parrying, and capable of chasing the player across rooftops. Skirmishes with them will make you sweat. At night, the undead crawl out from every crevice, and battles with them have become more challenging and varied, especially due to new types of zombies. Zombie chase levels have appeared a la GTA 5 , and by the third level, the game will unleash all the most dangerous creatures.

There are plenty of activities in Dying Light 2: main and side quests, additional tasks, farming missions, night runs for leveling up, challenges, and much more. Functionally, these are well-known tower captures, outpost clearings, find-and-deliver, catch-and-kill, collect-and-carry, repair electricity, communication, plumbing, or just talk to NPCs. The map is dotted with dozens of empty and repetitive quests, against which tasks with short stories are worth their weight in gold.

To enhance the gameplay, co-op for four players is introduced. The story progresses for the host, while friends just observe. But in gameplay, everything is completed together, faster and more intensely, although the difficulty increases proportionally with the number of players. All found items and progress are counted separately and saved for each player.