Dying Light: The Beast – Returning to the shadows with vengeance.
Techland has been a leader in open-world survival games for a long time. With the 2015 release of the first Dying Light, they gave players a unique mix of parkour-based movement, tense horror at night, and brutal close combat. People liked the game because it had a good mix of open-world adventure and high-stakes survival, especially at night when the world became dangerous.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human, the game’s follow-up, tried to build on these ideas by adding choice-based stories, more RPG features, and a bigger world called Old Vidor. But Dying Light 2 had a lot of problems, especially with the pace, the way the world was explored, and the feeling of danger during the night-time scenes.
Now comes Dying Light: The Beast. At first, this project was meant to be a solo DLC for Dying Light 2. However, it naturally grew into a full-fledged entry in the series, combining the best parts of both previous games while focusing on the horror roots of the first.
When Techland makes The Beast, they bring back the fear, urgency, and visceral action that made the series famous. With 20 to 40 hours of material, it’s being marketed as an AAA experience, letting players know that it’s not just a mini-expansion or side story.
Dying Light: The Beast starts up many years after the first game. Kyle Crane, the main character that fans have come to love, has been held captive by an unknown person known only as the Baron for 13 years and used in a number of trials. The players start by getting Crane out of jail, working with Olivia, a woman who helped plan the escape.
Caster Woods is a remote valley in the Alps that serves as the game’s setting and adds a lot to its mood. Here, Crane needs to quickly get used to his weak body again and get stronger. Chimeas, the Baron’s twisted experiments on zombies, serve both a story and a gameplay purpose. By taking a special substance from these changed zombies, Crane can improve his skills and unlock the Beast form.
This change lets players briefly turn into a huge, damaging monster that is almost impossible to kill, tearing enemies apart in intense battles. This new power is cleverly integrated into both the story and gameplay, creating a fun loop of progress, discovery, and survival.
The story does a superb job of mixing revenge-driven motivation with survival horror elements. This gives players a purpose to explore and talk to other survivors. Olivia is vital because she moves the plot forward and keeps it moving, while the Baron is constantly there as a terrible threat. The setting of the story—especially at night, when the Caster Woods turns into a living nightmare—makes the themes of loneliness, fear, and confusion even stronger.
Dying Light: The Beast‘s gameplay is a smart mix of the tense survival elements from Dying Light 1 and the smooth systems from Dying Light 2. Parkour remains very important, and Techland has once again created settings that encourage players to explore and be creative.
Players can move quickly through the woods by climbing, vaulting, and swinging across roofs, trees, and rocky outcroppings. The game also adds vehicle features that let players kill zombies or move through bigger areas faster. These add a sense of freedom that complements the parkour systems well.
Combat has a lot of different levels. Melee is still the main mode, and there are a lot of different weapons to use, from homemade tools like axes and crowbars to powerful guns like flamethrowers and grenade launchers. The game has a lot of blood and gut-wrenching effects, which are sometimes too much, but they fit with the survival-horror style.
For example, cutting up zombies is not only fun to look at, but it’s also good for strategy, since some enemies need certain moves to be defeated. Beast Mode is a big change to the way you play. In contrast to Aiden Fury in Dying Light 2, Beast Mode is fully controlled by the player and has its own skill tree that lets Crane’s supernatural powers be changed and improved.
Crane becomes almost impossible to stop for a short time when it is activated, which is an exciting change from the usual tense, high-risk battles. One of the most interesting parts of the game is the contrast between how weak the human Crane is and how strong the Beast is.
It’s fun and satisfying to fight in Dying Light: The Beast. Melee fights stress timing, placing, and managing resources, especially at night when Volatiles, the game’s best zombies that come out at night, chase players nonstop. Threats are easier to deal with and can often be dodged during the day, giving players the chance to plan when to fight and when to run away.
The chase mechanics, which are an important part of Dying Light: The Beast, are back and stronger than ever. Volatiles now go after players with more knowledge and aggression, making fights really tense. Some parts of the battle may be easier than in earlier demos, but the game makes up for it by letting you use the environment, Beast Mode, and tools in creative ways.
The bad news is that some small problems make the battle less fluid. Early reports and my own experience suggest that the weather and the day-night cycle can occasionally cause problems. These problems can cause Volatiles to spawn at random or prevent natural effects from taking place. These bugs can make it hard to get into the game for a short time, but they don’t really hurt the fighting systems.
XP development works well and consists of many components. Fighting, exploring, and doing side tasks all earn experience points for the player. As you level up, you get skill points that can be used in one of three skill trees to improve your running skills, your fighting skills, or your Beast Mode skills.
By extracting Chimea chemicals, players can improve Beast Mode, which makes it last longer and do more damage, among other things. It’s interesting that sometimes rising up makes parkour more efficient, though it’s not always clear what effect this has on how you move.
In any case, gaining XP makes players feel like they are actually getting better, whether it’s by making them more deadly in battle, faster on the ground, or stronger in Beast Mode. This method creates a balanced loop of risk, reward, and exploration that encourages players to finish both the main story and side content. Dying Light: The Beast is beautiful to look at.
Careful planning went into making the Caster Woods, which are a mix of the best parts of Harran’s environment, The Following’s countryside, and Dying Light 2’s wilderness places. Every area feels planned and unique, so there isn’t the problem of Old Vidor in Dying Light 2 being built over and over again.
Details like lighting, weather effects, and the surroundings make it easier to get lost, especially in scenes that take place at night. The pitch-black woods, moving rain, and wind effects create a palpable sense of fear and isolation, which makes trips at night really scary.
The attention to detail also shows in the zombies and Chimeas, who have grotesque forms that make their mutant nature stand out. The character models show a lot of emotion, and the animations are smooth and rewarding, especially in close combat and Beast Mode. Overall, the quality of the graphics supports both the gameplay and the story.
The sound design in Dying Light: The Beast is also very good. The adaptive audio, written by the same musician who worked on Dying Light 2, changes based on the player’s actions and what they see around them. As players make their way through the woods, tension builds, and small changes in the environment warn of nearby threats or approaching danger. When Beast Mode is turned on, the music gets louder to match the chaos and raw power of Crane’s change.
When you’re roaming at night, sounds like wind flowing through the trees, zombies howling in the distance, and footsteps crunching on the ground might make you feel more like you’re there. The soundtrack and sounds from the environment that change in response to what happens in the game make the terrifying moments seem real and unexpected.
Dying Light: The Beast is a confident return to the series’ main strengths, which are intense fighting, fluid parkour, and nights that are really scary. Techland has done a good job of combining parts of Dying Light 1 and 2 while adding new features, like Beast Mode, that make the game more fun without changing what the series is known for.
The story is interesting, with Crane’s personal quest for payback driving the plot and the Baron’s experiments creating new, scary threats. The Caster Woods are beautifully realized, combining the look of known series with new stories about the environment. One of the most atmospheric Dying Light experiences yet is made possible by changing weather, realistic lighting, and sound design that pulls you in.
Combat and progressing are fun, and XP and skill trees let you grow in a useful way. Beast Mode adds a layer of strategic and visceral excitement by letting players experience what it’s like to be too strong for crowds of enemies for a short time. Small technical problems, especially with the weather system, can sometimes make it hard to get into the game, but they don’t really take away from the experience as a whole.
In terms of its size, Dying Light: The Beast is big. It has 20–40 hours of content, which is the same amount as past mainline games, and the gameplay is very good for $59.99 USD. The fact that Dying Light: The Beast went from being planned as DLC to a full AAA release shows that Techland cares about quality and meeting fan standards.
In the end, Dying Light: The Beast is an exciting, well-made, and very rewarding game in the series. It brings back the tension, fear, and creativity that made the first game so popular, but it also adds to the story, mechanics, and world immersion.
This game has a lot for series fans to enjoy, from the scary parts that happen at night to the free-flowing running and rough-and-tumble Beast Mode. This game feels both like old friends and like something new. It’s a true return to form for a series that knows how to scare, thrill, and enjoy all at the same time.
