Avoid a Few Clichés
Power struggles, war, dictatorships, disease, suffering, food shortage, monsters, zombies, chaos, death, quarantines; those are just a few of our favorite things we expect to see in a story about a zombie apocalypse be it a video game, movie, a book, or whatever.
Dying Light, being a zombie survival game and all, was definitely bound to include at least a few of these tropes so they could fit in with the rest of the genre. The problem is Techland went too far and used just about all of them. Dying Light’s setting ends up being a pile of clichés seen in many other zombie games and other media such as The Walking Dead. Just look at that guy up there, he just screams zombie apocalypse warlord.
This all makes Dying Light woefully predictable. There’s a fine line between conforming to a genre and becoming clichéd. Dying Light’s main story, despite success in other aspects such as its side quests, fails to stay on the right side of that line.
Character Development
Usually, dawn-of-civilization kind of settings involve moral dilemmas and having to make sacrifices for a greater good. Whether it’s helping someone you dislike, or having to choose the lesser of two evils, Dying Light has no shortage of difficult situations.
Nonetheless, there is a problem: Dying Light doesn’t actually let players choose. Despite the moral complexity of the situations you’ll be facing, the outcome is pretty clear cut. While this is common place in many other games, it’s an issue in Dying Light as the characters’ moral bearing is often inconsistent. There are moments (not mentioned to avoid spoilers) in which Crane’s actions are in complete opposition to everything you know about him. Also, the heroes and villains in Dying Light are borderline caricatures More often than not, characters act more like satirical stereotypes than real people trying to survive.
While it’s entertaining to watch how Crane crushes his own beliefs and moral standards, it’s impossible to avoid thinking about how things could have been more easily solved in another way. These are the moments that really kill the immersion.
Nighttime Gameplay
Honestly, Dying Light’s nighttime gameplay is one of the game’s highlights. Going out after dawn is both extremely dangerous and rewarding. While volatiles are the toughest and fastest zombies out there, everything you do, including surviving the night, gives you double skill points. So yes, Dying Light’s night is pretty great, but being a key part of the game’s pre-release marketing, we were expecting even more.
So what’s the problem? It needed to be scarier and a lot more difficult. Despite all the dangers involved in touring Harran during the nights, they all become diminished by the helpful tools given to players to fight them off. Also, it doesn’t really matter how tough and scary volatiles are when avoiding them is way too easy, even for characters with low agility and power levels.
This is actually a shame, since Dying Light’s nighttime gameplay could have made Dying Light stand out in a crowded genre. Instead of going easy on players, it should have been hellishly hard for low level characters. Eventually, advanced players would have had an additional challenge, in which surviving would have depended on skills and the myriad of traps scattered all over the city streets. It would have been crazy fun, but instead, it’s only adequate.
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