3/5 ★ – PhatBaby's review of Dying Light 2 Stay Human.

Ah. Dying Light 2. My sweet buggy baby. I've been playing this game for around a week and a half now to pen guides, and while I'm sure the version you'll see on launch is largely much less tumultuous, the version I've been playing really has been a mess. Crashes, frequent audio issues, textures that won't pop in, quest bugs, low frame rates; a particularly funny glitch where Aiden eternally screams like he's falling even when on the ground (I quickly learned how to fix this bug, but it made me laugh so much that I tried to endure as much of it as I could before resetting). It's a shame because Dying Light 2 isn't a bad game. A directionless one? Sure. Outside of the bugs, it just lacks a core identity. It marketed itself on the idea of choice and consequence, but your choices don't really alter much outside of what colour the districts are on the map and which agonizing theme song you'll have to listen to on loop as you explore a particular zone. It doesn't matter anyway, because even if I felt the fate of Dying Light 2's world and its inhabitants rested firmly on my shoulders, the story and characters wouldn't have made me care. Yes, part of that is because the zombie narrative is well and truly dead and buried; I never wanna hear about "biters," infections and the quest to produce a cure ever again. But the writing is generally poor here anyway and from Aiden 'personality of a cornflake' Caldwell to his dreadfully dreary mission to find his missing sister, the story is a wet fart from beginning to end. Honestly, it's frustrating, because this really is one of the best first-person parkour games I've ever played. Combat is still a slog – with clunky battles, an obsession with fun-devoid RPG mechanics (I'm looking at you level scaling...) and damage sponge enemies that sport far too much health – but when you're free-running across buildings, chaining slides, leaps, paragliding descents and grappling hook shots together into seamlessly flowing combos, it really stands on its own. If you ask me, THAT should've been the core of this game. There's a really fantastic mission towards the end of the second act where you're confined to one building and have to climb it floor by floor. After it was done, I was sat there thinking, man, I kinda wish this singular section was the whole game. It's the one moment where the zombies feel tangibly scary. You're running through dark rooms, outnumbered by infected. Everyone you've ever talked to about this building has told you it's a tomb and here you are, experiencing that atmospheric dread first-hand. There's always this expectation that sequels like this need to be bigger, grander; they need to be filled with HOURS of adventure. But sometimes stripping back and focusing on the core of a game is to its benefit. The traversal and sense of motion is what makes Dying Light 2 great. If they do a third one, I'd love to see them rein it in and focus on something like that confined act 2 finale, because for all the hours of repetitive side quests, open-world exploration and long-winded combat, it was those two hours of unsettling dread that soared above everything else. Anyway. It really seems like I hate this game, but I don't. The parkour is outstanding, they've worked on making the night sections genuinely tense (but with enough reward to entice you out of UV-lit safety) and, man, it's really damn pretty at points. I just think it's forgettable and lacks a core focus. I hope they find it in the expansions, because there's the recipe for something really great here. But for now, it just didn't do much for me.