Dying Light: The Beast review – familiar yet monstrous fun
First, in 2011, we got Dead Island, Techland’s opinion-dividing, melee-focused zombie adventure, taking place on the sun-soaked island of Banoi. Three years later, Kyle Crane made his debut in Dying Light, literally dropping into the city of Harran as all hell broke loose. Now, after rescuing that city and its remaining sentient inhabitants from despicable forces (or not, if you instigated one particular ending from the expansion Dying Light: The Following), he’s back, and he’s out for revenge on the man who’s spent the last 13 years torturing him.
Dying Light: The Beast review
- Developer: Techland
- Publisher: Techland
- Platform: Played on Xbox Series X/S
- Availability: Out now on PC (Steam, Epic), PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Playing Dying Light: The Beast, a game originally planned as an extensive expansion, it’s impossible not to feel like it’s Techland’s greatest hits. The most notable returnee is, of course, Kyle Crane, escaping from the sort of gleaming underground base epitomised by the Resident Evil series, before emerging blinking into the bright sunlight of Castor Woods, a former tourist spot situated in an unspecified European country. Soon, he’s talking to – and like, just totally trusting – Olivia, a woman with a plan to ramp up Crane’s bestial abilities by extracting the blood from a series of monstrous experiments known as Chimeras. Meanwhile, a group of survivors are holed up in the town hall located in Caster Woods’ Old Town, and this is the focus for many of Dying Light: The Beast’s missions.
A handful of other characters return, but even though Dying Light: The Beast has been out for over a week, this is a spoiler-free review, so you’ll have to resort to a two-second Google search to find out who. Otherwise, this Techland convergence is given a light The Last of Us dusting, especially in some indoor scenes, where Biters (Dying Light’s name for zombies) hang comatose while weird, clicky noises punctuate the silence. Even The Beast’s musical theme is given a minimalistic and folky overhaul, evoking the HBO show. If you’re still not wholly convinced, there’s a rare resource material called Cordyceps.
Also returning are Dead Island’s vehicles, with a handful of ranger trucks scattered throughout the environment, and The Following’s deceptively bucolic countryside, which clashes with Caster Woods’ metallic industrial district. Meanwhile, the tight lanes of the Old Town will seem familiar to anyone who’s played Dying Light. Talking of the Old Town, unlike its sequel, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, someone’s been helpfully keeping the weeds in check; this urban area looks incongruously spruce after more than a dozen years into the apocalypse.
