Jolly Cooperation: Dying Light (3)

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale back to the third and final chapter of Tiro Finale featuring Dying Light. Having completed exactly 40 hours of joyous cooperative zombie gameplay, I had finally arrived at the end of Dying Light's base campaign (side missions included) and it has been quite the roller coaster ride along the way. But before we delve into that, here is a quick recap of things so far. In the first part, I gave my initial impressions of this surprisingly popular zombie title together with a quick optimization guide for Nvidia MX150 users. In the second part, I broke down what made Dying Light such an engrossing game but, at the same time, pointing out some of its critical errors. In this third and final entry, I will be giving my overall opinion of the game together with the my impressions of the game experience towards the latter half of its progression.

If you, like me, are the kind who would prioritize side quests and exploration over main quests in your open world games, you would have hit a certain peak by the time you are in the 25th hour of your gameplay. By this point, almost everything from your arsenal to your skills have reached peak levels allowing for very quick dispatch of zombies. Get a co-op buddy and you would be finding yourself mowing down herds of zombies you would normally be running away from in the earlier parts of the game. All of this makes for a very noticeable power increment throughout the game which will allow you to tackle greater and bigger challenges along the way.

Make no mistake though, the zombies are not to be trifled with as a large horde can slowly chip away at your health if you are not too careful. Of if you are unfortunate, special infected can take one clean swipe at you and wipe your health bar to zero instantaneously. Despite being armed with more lethal weapons in the latter half, we actually found ourselves dying more often! 

While part of that did come to our own silliness such as falling of ledges and buildings while trying to continue that sick parkour flow, the other part came from the increased risk that we were willing to take in the game. In the earlier half, the horrors of the night were something we never considered taking on even in our wildest dreams. As we got stronger and obtained more devastating means of dispatching zombies, that was when we started taking a poke at the horrors of the night. Despite our abilities to survive an entire night without resorting to a safe house, the zombies of the night were still not to be trifled with especially the apex zombie, the volatiles. 

Regardless of how strong one became, Dying Light always had its way to keep the suspense up. Whether it be at the volition of the players to explore more dangerous areas in search of better loot. Or quests which require you to head out into the night. And just when you think you are getting comfortable with the game's settings, Dying Light throws another curve ball by introducing an entirely new town in the second half of the game! One that is more suited for the parkour focused movement system of the game which really shines here.

Of course it is not all sunshine and rainbows throughout the 40 hour experience. Yes, the cooperative multiplayer aspect is indeed incredibly robust and well thought out. But, that always seems to be held back by the lesser single player aspects of the game. After the first five hours, the game already starts to become rather predictable with the few twists along the way either coming from a mile away of having little emotional impact. Speaking of emotional impact, your protagonist also never seems to develop any meaningful connections with the characters around him despite all the effort of the game's dialogue trying to convince you otherwise. 

By far the worst offender of the entire game has to be the final quest. Locked to be a single player segment, the final quest does little to leverage any of the training you have made throughout the game and for all its emphasis on freedom throughout the game, quickly removes it entirely. Forcing you to a linear half an hour segment which culminates in a rather expected ending. As far a weaknesses go, the story is definitely Dying Light's Achilles heel and it is a fact they seem to recognize too with their shift in focus towards better story telling in Dying Light 2. 

Despite all of my criticisms, I still hold Dying Light in very high regard and whole heartedly recommend it especially if you are looking for a memorable cooperative experience. If you are able to look past the weak storytelling and characters, which you should, Dying Light stands as one of the more impressive cooperative games in recent years. 

Quick note, upon completion of the main campaign, my coop buddy and I decided to take a short break from Dying Light. We will be coming back to its main expansion, The Following, in the future which promises another 20 hours or so of gameplay. For now though, that is the conclusion of our Dying Light adventure but, far from the end of our adventure in Jolly Cooperation. Shortly after we put the zombies down, we were already up and running in a new fantasy world for our latest cooperative adventure. What exactly is it? Let's just say, it is one that involves a lot of monsters. So, stay tuned for more Jolly Cooperation as we will be covering that new title soon. Until the next time, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!