Dying Light 2 Stay Human Review: Revival of the Apocalypse

By GamesRecon

“Stay Human” in Dying Light 2’s tagline seems to indicate Techland’s goal to find and expose the humanity hidden at the heart of the plot. Dying Light 2‘s development team has been promising fans several story paths from 2018. This branching-out was like falling from a tree and striking my face on every branch on the way down. It’s there, and there are many. Most of Dying Light 2 Stay Human falls short of Dying Light’s previous iteration’s first-person parkour standards, despite Dying Light 2’s larger scope.

To put it mildly, Dying Light 2 Stay Human’s strange, surreal style mixes up serious ideas about the end of the world with ridiculous characters and minigame scenarios, all the while keeping the atmosphere light and fun. It’s an odd combination, but still, it delivers. A huge open world, top-tier parkour action, and a variety of terrific characters make this post-apocalyptic person shooter one of the best out there.

Bugs and a tale centered on a dull protagonist don’t mix well together, which is why the game doesn’t function well as it might. Even though the developers at Techland had no clue that they’d be publishing a game about a global epidemic 2 years into the pandemic, it is evident that attempting to produce one such enormous title in these conditions did not help in its completion.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is full of characters to meet
Dying Light 2 Stay Human contains a lot of impressive characters.

Undead forces have been roaming the planet for decades, evolving and strengthening with each passing night in the apocalypse. Humanity, on the other hand, is putting up a fight. The tide of war is shifting in favor of the living thanks to technological advancements occurring in fortified locations throughout the city. Even the most ferocious of monsters are no match for the most advanced weaponry in the world, thanks to an electronic wristband. There is, however, a darker side to this story. Humanity faces an existential assault from within the darkness. It might be destroyed by greed, passion, betrayal, and obscure politics.

Whatever we enjoyed about the first Dying Light has been enhanced in the big sequel, Stay Human. There is a lot of room for mistakes, errors, and odd design decisions to be made in a game like this. Techland’s decision is evident because we didn’t identify any of it in our numerous hours of gameplay on the PS5. To that, we’d want to express our enthusiasm for revisiting the game and discovering new story pathways and side quests that we missed the first time around.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is among the most enjoyable role-playing games I’ve played, combining the horrors of the dead with the struggles of everyday living. When it comes to plot, open-world concept collaborative playing, and the ability to drop kick zombies off of skyscrapers, it’s hard to argue with the success of this game. This is exactly what a follow-up ought to be, enhancing the basic recipe to make great zombie horror fun once more.

Although it follows a similar blueprint to its 2015 predecessor, Dying Light 2, the sequel occurs in the same superb, highly immersive city where quirky victims who’ve become masters of parkour, scouring for food and cutting zombie heads with various sporting equipment live on the rooftops. By day, they rush into buildings, seeking shelter from the sun, then by midnight, they rush out into the roads; however, the actual suspense comes from keeping an eye on the horrifying meter that gets closer to your transformation into a brainless shambler.

You’re afflicted with the zombie infection, and the only thing keeping you from turning into a flesh-eating monster is your near-constant exposure to UV rays. Each moment of your journey is made more stressful by the constant having to replenish that meter, which can run dry in minutes even while you’re outside in the open and far from any source of light.

To keep things balanced, you’ll have to stay the night in abandoned metro stations and energy plants to obtain new weapons and construction equipment. Still, during the day, you’ll roam the city and complete story objectives until you really should go inside.

In this situation, your best strength is your parkour system, which is a massive improvement over the original game’s very powerful toolset. You’ll be able to flip around with a grappling hook and jump from building to building easily. While racing from point A to point B in “The Floor is Lava,” you’ll find yourself constantly entertained since its streets are overflowing with zombies and robbers who aren’t yet dead.

Human foes are overly obvious even though battle seems weighty exactly as intended.
Human foes are overly obvious even though battle seems weighty exactly as intended.

Even while its sequel has more scope and character than the original, it is still a zombie action thriller. Since the events in Harran, the terrain is now more fragmented, with isolated populations scattered across the globe. Your character spends a lot of time in “The City,” the last significant city in striking distance of their initial position. Instead of traveling between towns to bring goods or information like your Pilgrim character usually does, Aiden must now hunt for his long-lost sister. She is rumored to be hiding within The City’s fortified walls.

Initiated an epic tale of friendship and betrayal as well as an ever-evolving puzzle that unveils your past through flashbacks (normally, when you’re sleeping). To speed through the tale (which nevertheless typically takes 20 hours), you can skip side quests, missions, scavenger hunts, and plenty of other little events. Or you can take your time and do everything that comes your way.

Dying Light 2: Stay Human suffers from cross-generational evolution
There are some restrictions but the overall graphics of the game look amazing.

There are, of course, a few limitations to having so much joy. If we look into the graphics, Dying Light 2: Stay Human suffers from cross-generational evolution. Overall, the game looks fantastic, although the PS5 edition appears very much like a PS4 title with enhancements. While the character models are great, particularly once the camera zooms in and focuses over them for dialogues and task briefs, they lack the additional layer of refinement you’d hope from a simple Playstation 5 game.”

The PC version is excellent overall, but the PlayStation edition certainly had to make some concessions to avoid Cyberpunk 2077-level issues on last-generation consoles, which is a shame. That’s evident in the PS5’s finest graphics mode. Resolution, Quality, and Performance are the 3 options you can use, each having its respective distinct settings.

Co-op play in Dying Light 2 adds to the enjoyment of the game. This game is best played in co-op if you have a group of buddies that can help you with military convoys and bandit bases, as well as GRE oddities. My co-op sessions have disconnected, which is unpleasant. However, the regular auto-saves ensure that I’m just wasting only a few minutes every time I restart the session.

Co-op objectives, side quests, and even accomplishments and trophies can all be completed, but only if the host’s planet has been completed first. My map remained littered with items I’d previously completed in co-op to make matters worse. Overall, I think that co-op is a pleasant diversion, but not how I would play the complete experience because of this restriction—even though it’s greatest towards the conclusion.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human: Our Verdict

Like the other in a huge queue of video games with huge potential underneath a thick coating of problems, Dying Light 2 Stay Human has the potential to become a spectacular zombie survival game in the future. It’s better put on your to-do list for the time being unless you’re keen to play all over rooftops through its excellent parkour, which, if everything goes according to plan – is an incredible path to journey through the last city’s immersive environment and enter the post-apocalyptic storylines of many of its bizarre and unique characters.
Even though some people find the Far Cry influence distracting, we think it elevates an already excellent concept to a new height. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. It is much more astounding when you realize that Techland is essentially an independent development firm and publisher.

Pros
  • Parkour is an interesting and diverse sport
  • Lots of side quests and events to take part in
  • You never get bored when you’re dealing with the Infected
  • Great free-running ensures that traversing is always fun
  • Every move you take is accompanied by music

 Cons

  • A slog of a tale, from the awful final boss to the uneven voice acting
  • A little less terrifying than the first one
  • The tale suffers because of terrible writing
  • Human-on-human combat can be monotonous at times