I've played Dying Light: The Beast. After four hours it's clear that Techland has a solid zombie game on its hands

Three weeks ago, I had the opportunity to play Dying Light: The Beast. What's interesting, when I found out that I would have the chance to try out the latest game from Techland, I felt a bit doubtful because the second installment of the series, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, disappointed me in some key aspects. However, as I write these words and watch the gameplay footage again from the presentation, I come to the conclusion that The Beast will be closer to my favorite first installment of the game.

Kyle Crane returns

The plot of Dying Light: The Beast will allow us to follow the further adventures of the main character from the first part, Kyle Crane. In Dying Light, our goal was to recover certain files that had ended up in unauthorized hands. This time Crane wants to take revenge on the man who imprisoned and experimented on him for years. We have here a classic (and very popular recently) theme of revenge at all costs. Nothing groundbreaking, but from the beginning, you can feel the bloodlust and hatred that Kyle harbors for the main antagonist.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

The catch is that the man in question, The Baron, has an entire army of mercenaries behind him, and getting to his skin won't be easy. Especially since in Castor Woods, where The Beast takes place, there are tons of zombies, not just the ones known to fans of the series like Volatiles, Virals, Mutants, or Night Hunters. The Baron's hobby, besides experimenting on people, is also creating special zombie hybrids, called Chimeras. These are powerful beasts that Crane will make it his main goal to defeat.

Gazie's Chocolates

After presenting the general plot outline of Dying Light: The Beast, it's time for some meat. I had the opportunity to play four main missions and two side ones. And at the beginning, I must point out that they were interestingly written. It's not quite award-winning scriptwriting material yet, but there's definitely been a significant improvement compared to previous iterations. Roger Craig Smith's voice acting in the English version of the game really helps in that, making the character's sorrow and anger feel authentic and compelling.

One thing that really stuck with me was the way certain tasks were designed, which you can also find in another well-known game... The Witcher 3. One of Crane's main goals, as I mentioned earlier, is hunting Chimeras, which in turn involves conducting a small investigation, tracking, getting to know the narrative context of a given task, and finally fighting the Chimera, which isn't easy. Where do we know this from? Of course, it's not a criticism at all, because I had the most fun during those missions.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

Hunting down Baron's Chimeras makes sense not only for the story but also for gameplay, because after defeating a monster, we gain skill points needed to develop our "Beast" abilities. In The Beast, one part of the skill tree is dedicated to parkour and combat, while the other is dedicated to the abilities of the titular "Beast." You'll recognize some skills from previous games, like the jump kick and the ability to land from a height by pressing the right button on the controller/keyboard. But there are also some new things to discover.

I must confess that I feel like a monster

What's the biggest new feature in Dying Light: The Beast? A new bar appears in the lower left corner of the screen. A bar that, when filled, lets Crane enter Beast mode: we inflict more damage, take less, and use special abilities, such as a fast sprint to ram enemies or a charged ground attack that knocks back nearby foes. We can buy all these skills, and from what I've seen, they're really diverse.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

Nevertheless, I have one major complaint about this mode, we can't turn it on whenever we want. The bar that unleashes Kyle's inner monster is charged by dealing damage and receiving it. When we hit - it charges faster, when they hit us - slower. After filling it up, the main character automatically activates this mode. We can control how long it lasts because we can turn it off, but it led to situations where I would enter the Beast mode after finishing off the last opponent in a fight, which was just a waste. So I would prefer to have some control over this.

Zombinator

The parkour in Dying Light: The Beast is still the same as we've seen in previous installments, which is a really solid and extensive system for fast movement, designed to give the player as much freedom as possible. During the playthrough, I visited The Old Town, located in the center of the map, where I could see if Crane had perhaps lost his touch. Luckily, the former GRE agent is just as agile as he was 10 years ago when he first landed in Harran. He is fast and has no problem using elements of the environment for climbing. I often used his ability to run on walls, which provided a temporary speed bonus. In The Old Town, we can also find stuff that will help us with our acrobatic stunts, like trampolines, zip lines, and tall lamps that allow us to move from one building to another.

Another important element of the gameplay that has been slightly improved is combat. Its core is exactly the same as in the previous two installments, except that the brutality knob has been turned up almost to the max. Blood is pouring in streams, and limbs are flying left and right. The finishing blows also make an impression, and they depend on the type of weapon being used. In Beast mode, we will also experience quite unique finishers. Overall, I feel like there's gonna be a lot of gore and brutality here, which I tested by chopping off zombie heads, arms, and legs.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

In the first Dying Light, there was an option to use firearms; in the second one, initially, there wasn't, but later, due to community feedback, it was added in an update. The Beast follows in the footsteps of the first installment of the series and immediately provides the player with a gun. The thing is, I only managed to find a regular pistol. And I must say that the shooting was looking good - it definitely wasn't "crude" like in the first part, ammunition was scarce, and using a gun in the city meant that every ordinary brain-eater knew where to look for me. So a firearm is not something we will probably use on a daily basis. Nevertheless, I must note that my research sample wasn't big.

When it comes to long-range weapons, I found a bow that I didn't really like, so I quickly switched to a wide range of available shovels, knives, machetes, axes, hammers, and so on. When we fight zombies with melee weapons, we get to experience a kind of physicality that fans of the series are familiar with. I won't even mention the possibility of modifying weapons, where an ordinary baseball bat can become a Mjolnir spitting Greek fire.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

Another big novelty (or a return to the original idea) is the removal of the stamina bar during parkour. From now on, Crane can hang on to some edge without fear of falling, because he suddenly runs out of strength in his fingers. The protagonist of Stay Human, Aiden, had this problem and luckily, it was decided to do something about it. In combat, the stamina bar remains intact, and managing it properly is crucial, as running out makes dodging difficult, often leading to trouble. At the show, I also managed to exchange a few words with Tymon Smektala, Dying Light Franchise Director. In response to my question about the reason for giving up the stamina bar during parkour, I heard:

Thriller

In Dying Light 2: Stay Human, a lot of people said that the night in the game didn't really scare them. This matched my impressions, and I was counting on some changes in this direction, which ultimately didn't come. But that was in the second installment. Looking at it from a broader perspective, zombies never really scared me that much (except for the fast ones - they're not cool). Maybe it's because the whole living dead thing is used so often in pop culture. And yet DL: The Beast managed to give me goosebumps.

I'll start by saying that the night in The Beast is very dark. Our only source of light is a flashlight, which only illuminates what's in front of us, but only in the central part of the screen. For this reason, it feels as if something is about to suddenly jump out of the darkness - and often it actually does! Another thing that plays on our fear is the sounds that build tension effectively. Once, I walked into a room at night and suddenly the soundtrack turned really creepy, and I could hear strange noises coming from behind the wall. I didn't stay there long.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

While doing a side task, I got caught by the night and had to go through a narrow window to avoid the patrolling Volatiles. I also got scared by a jump scare from a regular zombie popping out from the corner. And of course, it's a cheap trick that I was already prepared for later. However, I haven't experienced anything like this in a long time, so I thought it was just a scripted scene, and then I fell into this trap again out of nowhere. I don't know many fans of jump scares. I think there are many other, better ways to scare; fortunately, in The Beast, this technique seems to be used quite sparingly.

Dying Light: The Beast, Techland, 2025

I mentioned the night and the Volatiles, so I feel obliged to write a few words about night pursuits. Just like before, when going out for night walks, we must remember that horrible monsters come out of various nooks and crannies, whose only goal is to hunt Crane. When playing at the medium difficulty level (Survival), it's still too easy to escape them, and the "pursuit level" fills up quite slowly, giving the player plenty of time to get away. A nice detail is that if we turn off our flashlight, it will be harder for the Volatiles to detect us. The situation completely changed when I switched the difficulty level to the highest (Brutal). As soon as I was spotted, I had all the pursuit markers on me within a minute, and my only way out was to escape to the safe zone with UV lights. I think the normal difficulty level needs a bit more intensity in the chases; it's a bit too casual at the moment.

Techland delivers?

Based on my impressions, you can imagine a really good game that definitely learns from the mistakes of its predecessors and also takes the best from them. Of course, it's not that I absolutely liked every aspect, because, for example, I didn't like the driving model at all - it lacks any physicality, and there is no cool, satisfying feeling when we take a turn and have to control our vehicle. I can't say too much about optimization, because we played on powerful rigs where everything worked as it should, maintaining a steady 60 frames. In the part of the open world we were given, I also kept coming across the same side activity of giving someone a bandage - it felt a bit repetitive.

However, these minor things shouldn't change the fact that Dying Light: The Beast looks and sounds very good, for which Olivier Deriviere is partly responsible. Now, we just have to wait until August 22nd to see if Techland delivers a good, polished, and complete product that meets players' expectations. "Good Night, Good Luck."

Dying Light: The Beast

September 18, 2025

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• action games
• zombie games
• parkour
• Dying Light (franchise)