Dying Light: The Beast is the DLC turned full-blown release from Polish developer Techland. Technically the third entry in a zombie-killing franchise that debuted a decade ago, The Beast brings back original protagonist Kyle Crane, tosses him into the new setting of Castor Woods, and dials up the horror for something much more aligned with that first outing. The result: a familiar yet endlessly fun post-apocalyptic experience. At least, so far.
For fans of the series, you may (or may not) be glad to know that Kyle is back and beastlier than ever. After enduring over a decade of experimental torment under the rule of The Baron, Kyle escapes into the aforementioned nature reserve.
However, this grunting parkour nut (voiced again by Roger Craig Smith), is now infused with the DNA of the undead, making him part man and part — you guessed it — beast.
Narratively, this leaves a scarred protagonist on the path of revenge, hunting down The Baron’s messed-up zombie experiments to fuse their blood with his. The hope is that Kyle and his merry cast of side characters grow strong enough to take The Baron and his men down. From a gameplay perspective, however, this gives us a fresh setting and a new collection of monstrous powers.
The former will be the big selling point for longtime fans of the series. Castor Woods is a wilderness surrounded by woodlands and picturesque mountains. It’s neither as big as the offering from Dying Light 2: Stay Human nor as dense as what we saw in the original game — but with a mixture of open fields and a dense city known as Old Town, it’s a fun place to explore.
With log cabins, babbling brooks, and what can be imagined as a once bustling hub of civilisation, Castor Woods feels like an amalgamation of the original Dying Light and its DLC The Following — noted also by the return of vehicles.
It’s filled with your typical onslaught of open world locales — mental asylums, old power stations, town squares — and it feels cliché in that way. But to us, this is actually more of a boon; the map hasn’t surprised us, but it also feels like video game comfort food.
You’ll traverse this map with the returning first-person parkour system. We wouldn’t say it feels any better than it has before — although there are a noted number of custom animations when jumping and climbing – but it’s great fun to swing across ledges and leap from rooftop to rooftop. Drop-kicking zombies off of rooftops will also never get old.
The interesting change with The Beast is that it features a number of flatter terrains. The hope from Techland here is that you aren’t always just relying on your parkour, and that it levels the playing field for the undead.
However, we found these areas comparatively dull to run across — though thankfully, there are ranger jeeps scattered around the map. These can never take you too far – they’ll run out of fuel within a minute or so – but they can save you those dull treks, and it’s always entertaining to watch zombies turn to mulch as you ram them.
Traversal and map design do take on a different feel when the sun goes down. The Beast is undoubtedly amping up the fear factor, with pitch black nights, creepy sound design, and the uber-zombies (called Volatiles) biting at your heels as you desperately run away.
It’s a great mechanic that we loved in the first game, so it’s nice to see Techland doubling down on it here. Seeing the sun set and eventually hearing your watch beep is truly unnerving, and its following stealth and chase sequences are easily the highlights of the game.
When you aren’t trying to hide from the overpowered Volatiles, combat remains largely the same as it has in previous entries, which is to say it’s still pretty great. You’re primarily slashing, chopping, bashing, and stabbing zombies and humans alike with an assortment of melee weapons.
The gore system on show is actually quite grotesque (a positive), and we enjoyed the dynamic feel to fights, as it was actually quite easy to get overwhelmed – even on the regular difficulty. Stamina management is paramount, especially on the tougher settings, so it’s key to utilise not just brute strength but also the environment, your moveset, and what appendages you’re hacking at.
After the Reloaded Edition of Dying Light 2, guns are a tad more prominent in The Beast, although not overwhelmingly so. Every now and again, you’ll come across enemies with rifles, SMGs, and pistols that feel very tactile to use.
We think in previous entries, it was obvious you weren’t really supposed to use guns, and controls felt stilted as a result. However, here it’s much improved – not Call of Duty levels, but certainly a lot tighter, and a lot punchier thanks to DualSense haptics.
Melee weapons most definitely remain the focus, though, as you’d expect. With the ability to repair and mod your favourite machetes, sledgehammers, and knuckle dusters, it’s good fun mixing and matching the different armaments for various zombie-tinged situations. We did, however, find the weapons in Dead Island 2 a tad more exciting, with much more vibrant designs.
And now let’s finally talk about those Beast Powers. During combat, Kyle will build up a sort of rage meter, which, when filled, will send him into a manic frenzy. It’s here that you can tear zombies apart with ease, and there are a number of gnarly kill animations. There’s actually a skill tree for this, which you’ll earn points for by killing the big bosses scattered across the world.
Beast Mode isn’t anything new per se, but it can switch up the dynamic of combat. At the point we’ve reached in the game, Beast Mode is automatically activated when the gauge is filled; sometimes it’ll happen when you don’t really need it, and sometimes it’ll happen exactly when you need it.
Either way, it’s a good gory laugh knowing you can tear through hordes of the undead, and maybe even go toe-to-toe with a Volatile while it’s active.
Conclusion
Ultimately, we’ve enjoyed what we’ve played of Dying Light: The Beast so far. To a lot of people it’ll come across as more of the same — which it almost certainly is, to some degree. However, we think Techland has been smart to improve or alter small things to make it a better overall experience. It’s not as expansive as the second game, nor as original as the first game, but if you like cleaving zombies and jumping around rooftops, then this may just be the most refined Dying Light yet.
