Dying Light preview

When we look ahead at the year to come in gaming, it feels like a very exciting 365 with 2 new additions to the next generation party and more highly anticipated games than you could ever hope to do justice and the list just got bigger with the addition of Techland’s Dying Light. It’s shaping up to be the most frightening game of 2014, building on the concepts first explored by Ubisoft at the end of 2012 in Zombii U, so expect your heart rate to jump sky high when you first get to play it.

Dying Light takes the idea of a zombie apocalypse first-person survival game and injects it with pace and more of an open world setting, making it the game that Zombii U 2 could have been if it had ever been developed. Set for release on the Xbox ONE, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in 2014, it looks light it might be epic and with the potential of co-op multiplayer online zombie warfare you’ve got the makings of a possible classic.

Storyline

The storyline for the Dying Light campaign is that you’re one of the survivors of a zombie outbreak that has decimated your city. It’s up to you to leave the barricaded safe zones to scavenge for supplies, find and craft weaponry and decimate the growing numbers of zombies to continue to survive for the ongoing preservation of the human race.

However, these zombies behave a little differently than the ones you might be familiar with. They’re pretty standard and slightly shambling during the day, but when the light starts to fade they become much more aggressive beasts that move a hell of a lot faster, so it’s tougher to stay safe out in the city when the sun goes down.

Gameplay

Dying Light is a first person survival horror game that sees you take to the streets of a sprawling open world urban environment as one of four other survivors of a zombie outbreak apocalypse. The gameplay blends the first person aspect of Zombii U with the open world, weapons customisation of Dead Rising 3 and the free running and close quarters combat of Assassins Creed to create what look to be a stand-out game.

The campaign sends you out into the overrun city to scavenge for supplies, save the odd one or two lone survivors, hunt down air drops and generally fuzz up the zombie attackers. As the game suggests, this isn’t crazy difficult in the cool light of day, when the zombies are relatively less active and easier to kill or avoid as they move slower, inflict less damage and can’t make the climb to the safe haven of the city’s rooftops.

However, when night falls they move like lightning, attack more ferociously, take more damage, attack in larger numbers, clamber onto rooftops and if that isn’t enough they’re also a whole lot harder to see coming. The night is also when the city’s super zombies come out to hunt, so making it through to sun-up is pretty tough, especially if one of these guys gets on your tale.

This split between night and day is a big part of the gameplay and creates a race against time dynamic that rewards getting things done and making it back to the safe zones before the sun goes down (a bit like a brutal take on Pikmin 3). If you do find yourself outside after dark, you’re not entirely a sitting target as you still have your free running skills and weapons arsenal to call on, but it will be a lot more difficult to survive. Although you’ll also have the benefit of your night sense ability that sends out a light pulse to give you a sporting chance of seeing the uglies coming. Check out the trailer below to see for yourself.

You might be wondering how Dying Light differs from Dead Rising 3 considering the easy comparisons with the Capcom franchise. They’re both zombie apocalypse games that feature survival elements combined with weapons crafting and an open world urban setting to roam around in, but that’s where the similarities stop. While DR3 is 3rd person and a little more unreal in style, DL is more full-on when it comes to its beautifully rendered and frightening graphics and opts for a first person viewpoint, making it a more serious kind of game to play.

Though we know that there will be a co-op multiplayer function to the game, the details of this are yet to be announced. As soon as we have more on the multiplayer and online options that will be a part of the game we’ll update the post and share through our social media channels (find us using the buttons above).

Graphics

While the game was officially announced at E3 last summer all we had to go on at the time was a CGI movie style trailer and while it looked impressive it didn’t really tell us a great deal about what the game actually looks like during gameplay. However, with the recent release of pre-alpha gameplay trailers like the one below we now know a whole lot more about the graphics that will land for the release of Dying Light later this year.

Though the gameplay trailers show pre-alpha action the visuals still look stunning, so there’s every possibility for them to get even more impressive before the game is released later in 2014. Details are realistic, with high frame rates, slick animation, gruesome zombie baddies and smart embelishments like trees caught in the wind, zombie reaction to being clubbed with a baseball bat and very impressive lighting. The draw distance looks like they’re still in need of a bit of tweaking, zombie faces could look more detailed and some of the close-quarters combat animation could be improved, but all-in-all this is clearly going to be a scarily lifelike game, especially for the Xbox ONE, PlayStation 4 and PC versions.

Dying Light preview summary

If the graphics on next gen consoles are built on even more than in the pre-beta gameplay trailer below then this should be a very impressive looking game. It should be a massive adrenaline rush no matter what system you play it on though, especially if developers, Techland, can make the game play as smoothly as it looks in the trailer. The only other thing that the game’s success hinges on will be the extent to which it builds out its online multiplayer modes. If it turns out to be a super slick COD-like multiplayer with lots of modes to choose from then it could be something special.

Dying Light gameplay trailer