Jolly Cooperation: Dying Light

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale for even more video game coverage! We first got the ball rolling with Dragon's Dogma as my new single player game of choice but, that left my multiplayer options hanging. As I have recently put many of my usual co-operative multiplayer games (Warframe, Path of Exile) on hold, I suddenly had an itching to get involved in some co-op zombie madness. Yes, very specific, I know. 

On that faithful night, I decided to look up possible co-operative zombie games to play. Having played Dead Rising 2 almost entirely in co-op in the pass, I was certain there would be some other similar counterpart out there that would live up or at least meet said expectation. Enter Techland's 2015 surprise-hit, Dying Light, an open-world, parkour-focused, story driven, co-operative zombie experience.

Released at the time of peak-zombie hype, Dying Light built of Techland's prior zombie entry, Dead Island, sharing many similarities including the open world, co-operative gameplay and first person view. Fortunately, the similarities end there as the injection of funding from publisher, Warner Bros, meant a whole host of upgrades and improvements towards this new zombie outing. More of that in a bit.

Having been released 4 years ago, Dying Light can still be considered a fairly recent title and one that is placed firmly within the current generation of consoles. As such, the game may still be fairly taxing on most systems especially with Nvidia's optional Game Works turned on. Sporting a fairly modest machine with Nvidia's MX150 GPU taking the helm, there was the worry of running the game well.

After some tweaking though, I finally managed to achieve a healthy custom graphical setting which ensured a smooth 60 frames per second experience without having to compromise too much on visuals. If you run a system similar to mine, these are likely the settings you would want to dial in. Post-processing effects such as ambient occlusion and Nvidia's Game Works hit particularly hard on frame rates. While, view distance too has a very significant impact on game performance. If you are looking for those extra frames, those are the settings you would probably want to dial down first. 

You would have to dig further into the Game Settings, not video, to find the option for Field Of View. Make sure to tweak these according to your liking and preference for the best game play experience. Frame rate does drop a little bit in as your field of view widens but, not significantly. Definitely one where you would want to sacrifice some frame rate in the pursuit of a more comfortable viewing experience.

After I got everything dialed in to my liking, it was time to go for a run throughout Dying Light's expansive open world city of Harran. Unlike the less than satisfactory optimization from Dead Island, I am more than happy to report that Dying Light runs near faultlessly. When running around and about, I managed to maintain a smooth 60 frames per second experience with no visible stutter or screen tear, thanks in part to vertical synchronization (V-Sync). The only time I would experience sudden frame drops was when I was looking into a a complex distant view (where many objects would need to be rendered within view) and, oddly enough, when looking at fire. Fire really tanked my frame rate eating up almost 15 frames just staring at a close flame source. Flames from Molotov cocktails, on the other hand, did not seem to have such impact on my frame rate. 

You would expect the large number of zombies on screen to quickly drag the frame rate down but, not here. Even as the bodies pilled up or a large number of zombies rushed towards me, the frame rate held its ground. While I do not have any official numbers, I do believe this aspect is largely CPU bound and the chippy little quad-core Intel i5 in my system did not have much trouble keeping up. 

The game, of course, does implement a rather clever system where zombies decompose into these "meat bags" containing the loot that they drop. It is a very novel and practical way of helping to keep the onscreen body count low while giving a good visual indicator of the loot that have yet to be collected. Since Dying Light was released across all major platforms, it would only make sense for the developers to come up with solutions that would not tax the then lowest common denominator, the Xbox One. 

But enough about the graphics as I have yet to mention much about the game play itself! As of writing, I am only 10 hours through the game and still very early on in the story. This is largely attributed to Lance and I messing around and completing the side quests and whatnot rather than completing the main objectives. As it stands, I am really enjoying my time with Dying Light and even more so since I have a co-op companion. Dying Light is not just a serious upgrade over Dead Island but, a very competent game in and of itself. 

Would I play the game if it were just me alone? Perhaps not initially but, now that I have given it a shot, I can definitely seeing myself enjoying the entire process. If not for the fact that it just becomes that much more fun with a co-op partner. 

So if you ever find yourself looking for a fun and engaging co-op game to play with your friends, you should definitely give Dying Light a shot. Who knows? Maybe you would be lucky like me and stumble upon the game at 75% discount on the very same night you wanted to play it. 

With that, we come to the very end of this entry. I promise, we will try to stay on track and keep up with our usual anime content! Until then, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!