Peak of the franchise.
By Ameer Ammar
Dying Light: The Beast was originally concieved as DLC for Dying Light 2, it had an entirely different story and much smaller scale, much of the reason this game exists is because the script of that DLC leaked online and the developers decided they didn't wanna make it anymore, and that might have been the best possible thing that could have happened to the Dying Light franchise.
Simply put, Dying Light: The Beast is basically everything that Dying Light 2 should have been, and this is coming from someone who has hundreds of hours in both DL1 and DL2 as a massive fan of the franchise, the majority of the fanbase agrees that DL2 simply missed the mark in story, atmosphere, horror and generally feeling "Dying Light" despite having far superior parkour and combat to the first game, everything around the core gameplay felt like a step back from DL1, this is where The Beast comes in to rectify everything. The Beast combines all the best aspects of Dying Light 2 being the fantastic parkour, combat, and customization with Dying Light 1's haunting atmosphere, terrifying night times, the ragdoll physics, guns and the return of vehicles from The Following DLC, Both of these combined plus what I consider to be the first genuinely well written story in this franchise, come together in what is the best Dying Light game by far.
Starting off with the story, Dying Light The Beast centers around the return of DL1 protagonist Kyle Crane, masterfully acted by Roger Craig Smith, explaining what happened after the cliffhanger of The Following and Kyle hunting down special infected called "Chimeras" as he plots to take his revenge on those who experimented on him for the past 13 years and turned him into the titular Beast. Crane's character this time is different from DL1 in subtle ways, he is much angrier and older, A seasoned Zombie slayer by this point due to the events of Harran, I absolutely love his quips and the way he reacts to things, even with how angry he is in this game, he still has that heart of gold and can't help not going out of his way for people around him, I'd describe him best as Kyle Crane from DL1 meets Doomguy. I truly think this franchise needs to keep Crane as its lead for the rest of it.
Techland's storytelling has never been particularly great, this is a problem that goes back all the way to Dead Island which is where Dying Light finds its roots from, they've just never been able to make a truly compelling well-written story, Dying Light 1 had its high points, Kyle Crane himself was the major highlight but much of the side cast was forgettable especially towards the second half, Dying Light 2 was even worse, with so many stories happening at once that come together to form nothing as it grapples between wanting to be a deep choice-based RPG and a straight action story game like DL1.
Dying Light The Beast finally delivers the franchise's first ever truly great story, this is no Last of Us and it won't have you on the edge of tears or anything, nor should it, instead The Beast finally embraces the ridiculousness of this franchise that they kept trying to skirt around, This is a revenge tale where you'll never be debating the "cost" or "morality" of revenge, Crane is out for blood and the Beast inside him which you can make countless memes about, is written with a great sense of self awareness, the developers know you've seen this trope before in 2000s werewolf movies and fully embrace that, Kyle will say things like "Don't push me, you don't wanna see my other side!", its cliche yet its awesome. The Baron is the villain this time around and he is everything that they were trying to get Rais to be, he is a genuinely threatening genius that you love to hate, very much inspired by Resident Evil's Wesker, I only wish he had even more screen time as he stole every scene he was in.
It is also the first well paced Dying Light game, around the same length as DL1 and completely ditches the RPG aspect, you won't be making any decisions during this story aside from having the ability to ask optional questions which is appreciated for additional context, the story doesn't let up, it has the best prologue, a great middle that only falters slightly around the second half of the middle portion, and a fantastic finale that has me beyond excited to see where this franchise goes next, What they have here in terms of story and tone is something that I am praying they don't let go of, Dying Light 2 desparately tried to re-invent the franchise completely and it just didn't work, Whenever Dying Light 3 comes out, I truly am hoping it is a direct continuation of this, with Kyle Crane as the protagonist again as I just do not think this franchise works as well without him, no disrespect to Jonah Scott's Aiden which I've always liked, but Crane is simply him.
The majority of the cutscenes in The Beast are mocapped which is a great change from most of the rigid conversation scenes in DL2 and I especially loved the new third person cut scenes, I never considered before what these games would look like with these and now I am wishing we got even more of them, there are plenty of these in the main story but I wished we saw Crane even more in the side content as well, or during those radio conversations where you are just staring at the floor, those would've worked better in third person.
Gameplay wise, Since Dying Light The Beast started originally as DLC for DL2 as I mentioned earlier this isn't a complete overhaul, if you've played DL2 post-launch then you know that gameplay was completely overhauled and this carries that forward with even more changes but keeping the initial foundations, I have no complaints about this whatsoever as I have always felt DL2's gameplay was close to perfection, there are many minor changes here that do set apart The Beast, for example, most of the gameplay animations have been completely overhauled and I absolutely loved this change, if you ever felt like DL2 had floaty looking animations, well they are gone and replaced with DL1-accurate animations, even the swing animations for certain weapons are recreated to match Crane's fight style in the original, this is a level of attention to detail that I didn't expect at all from what I thought would feel like DLC.
It also helps that this is a much harder game to start off, Zombies are geniunely threatening and biters can absolutely kill you in a group if you aren't careful enough, there is also a ton of Zombies, this is a weird detail to point out but if you were there for launch DL2, then you know that game shipped with basically no Zombies on the streets, The Beast feels apocalyptic, there are zombies EVERYWHERE.
Parkour is great, Crane is heavier than Aiden generally and this gets some getting used to, he climbs slower and mistakes can ruin his momentum much more quickly than Aiden, aside from that, it is exactly as it was in DL2 after it got the parkour overhaul with more DL1 jump heights rather than the ridiculous heights that Aiden could jump, there is a specific rhythm to this particular parkour system that is incredibly satisfying to me, I've spent hundreds of hours in DL2 just jumping around while on a call with friends. While I will get into the world itself later, it is important to note that Old Town is a far better designed parkoru playground than Old Villedor ever was in DL2 or anywhere in DL1, only rivalled by DL2's central loop, the entire town is built on a slope, meaning you get these massive jumps if you're going down or these big climbs that you can chain wallruns to skip, making you feel like an absolute master by the time you have all your parkour skills and you've learned the best routes.
Combat combines the best aspects of DL1 & DL2, it has the fantastic ragdolls that were in DL1 finally back, there's a real sense of oomph to every hit, you can send enemies completely flying with the dropkick as is tradition, it keeps the parkour combat abilities of DL2 and the blocking but combines it with the heavy feeling animations of DL1, it is seriously the best the combat has ever been in the franchise and the new Chimera bosses are the first time I've had fun with boss fights in Dying Light, each one offers a unique challenge and the finishers for each are absolutely BRUTAL. making each encounter with these monsters a memorable experience.
Beast Mode itself offers a fun new tool in your arsenal, built up by taking damage and dealing damage, you can unleash Crane's beast and rip enemies apart, it is a fun new tool and the finishers make it especially great to use, there are also parkour uses for it as it has a grapple pull ability and higher jumps, I haven't utilized it enough in parkour to really make an assessement on how impactful but overall Beast Mode is something that should've honestly been in DL2 considering how much that game set it up in the story but I am glad its finally here, another piece that mkaes Dying Light The Beast the ultimate Dying Light game.
Vehicles are back from the Following, this time you can drive 4x4s, its not just one buggy like in The Following that you customize, you find these around the map instead, the driving feels strangely perfect? I don't think you expect a game like Dying Light to have fantastic driving physics but surpisingly, they got it completely right here, they feel heavy yet controllable, I'd describe it as similar driving to GTA 5 honestly, just slightly heavier. I am glad vehicles are back and I am hoping these stick in the next game as its always a nice change of pace from parkour to drive around and run over zombies.
All in all the gameplay takes together all the best aspects of the franchise so far, it changes a lot more than I expected for something that started off as DLC, and ultimately is the best a Dying Light game has ever felt.
The World of Castor Woods is great, it is much bigger than I initially thought it was, you can really get lost here, there is a ridiculous attention to detail especially in interiors, every dark zone is unique now and not copy-pasted as they were in DL2, marking a massive leap in quality here in side content. it is filled with fun little easter eggs and secrets as well, Old Town takes the middle portion of the map, a decently sized town, fantastic for parkour, the surrounding areas are forests, factories, other smaller towns and various hills to climb and explore, there is a ton to see and do here, they did a great job and it is a far cry from the Ubisoft-style copy and paste world that DL2 leaned into, it is also deeply atmospheric, Night Time is back to being the terrifying pitch-black horror fest it was in DL1, arguably even scarier considering Volatiles practically can one shot you now and even see your flashlights, I especially love the architecture around Castor Woods, it has an almost gothic theme to it, especailly the building. it is seriously a massive change from Villedor's basic overly colorful design that failed to portray an apocalypse, Castor Woods feels dead, and genuinely uneasy to explore especially at night. it has that Harran apocalypse vibe but in a different, new way. This is right up there with the Slums as the best map in the franchise.
Side Content here is the best that the franchise has ever had hands down. If you don't do the side quests then you are doing yourself a massive disserivce, DL1 & DL2's side content were mostly fetch quests with the occasional highlight memorable ones. I'd argue here in The Beast, every single side quest is memorable, there is one side quest in particular that you get from a character called "Starchild", the second one from that character, is quite possibly the best side quest I've played in the franchise, a strong contender for the best quest in the franchise period, I couldn't believe that is side content, I highly recommend doing all the side content here, it is truly all great stuff and I am hoping is used as the blueprint going forward.
Moving on from gameplay, I have to talk about the soundtrack because holy crap, Olivier Deriviere's work here elevates this experience to new heights, his work on DL2 was already a major highlight of that experience but here? the soundtrack takes Dying Light 1's iconic theme and blasts it throughout the entire game, in different new forms, and it absolutely goes perfectly. many tracks combine DL2's sound into it as well, resulting in what feels like a culmination of 10 years of Dying Light in audio form. The soundtrack adapts to the gameplay perfectly and one of my favorite aspects is that because obviously there are no radio stations in the apocalypse, Driving around instead plays these loud amazing tracks that take center stage from the OST that I couldn't help but bop my head to the entire time. The things they do with the music especially towards the end gave me chills, I wanna give major shouts to the tracks Kyle, Mood 01, Mood 06, An Angry Man, A Changed Man and The Beast, I have had these in my work out playlist since launch and can't stop listening to them, this soundtrack is perfect.
Performance wise, Dying Light The Beast runs practically perfectly on all platforms, my only issue is that I wish they utilized PSSR on the PS5 Pro version of this game as the image in performance mode is very soft compared to Quality Mode, aside from that minor gripe, this is a fantastic release with no real issues. There is something strange about the visuals, being that this practically looks like a completely different game with HDR on, I much prefer the HDR version of this game but I have never seen such a massive difference in visuals with HDR On vs Off in any other game, I highly recommend playing this with HDR. In terms of polish it is mostly bug free, I only had one particularly super annoying bug after finishing the game where every time I'd load up my save, music from the final boss fight would be playing and wouldn't stop until I join a co-op session and then go back to my save, I am hoping this is fixed up quickly. Co-op itself works great, I faced no connection issues and cross-progression in co-op finally works again after DL2 just didn't have it for some odd reason, you also get special rewards for playing in co-op.
FINAL VERDICT
In conclusion, Dying Light: The Beast is far more than a DLC, the fact they are giving this away for free if you had DL2's Ultimate Edition is a huge steal, priced at $60 rather than the usual $70 or even $80 nowadays, you are getting major bang for your buck here, In many ways this is the real Dying Light 2, the true continuation to DL1 that fans have been clamoring for, and I am saying this as a massive DL2 defender for years. They got everything right here. I truly hope everything here is built upon for Dying Light 3 (or 4?) rather than a restart like DL2 had with a new engine, Techland has a winning formula here and with DL3, all I want is more of this but bigger and more refined. There were rumors that the next Dying Light takes place in a Japan-inspired setting and I hope that is true.
Dying Light: The Beast - 9/10 - BUY