Dying Light 2 test: a game we already know parkour

What an epic for Techland. First announced in 2018, Dying Light 2 : Stay Human finally reached us - not without accumulating on the counter two good years behind the schedule set by the Poles. However, what could have let us imagine a game as dented when it was released as a certain cyberpunk 2077 comes in a much more decent form. Until we realize that, underneath this costume that appears to have been signed by a great couturier, is actually a three-piece Célio Club.

Dying Light 2 test: a game we already know parkour See PriceRead ConclusionDying Light 2

The more we play, the cooler it is
Hard-hitting melee combat
Very smooth movements...
Well thought out progression system

Shameful Spanish localization and translation
Textures from another age
… but sometimes imprecise
Lots of copy-paste

The more I talk about it around me, the more my interlocutors seem to have a good memory of Dying Light first of the name. Released in 2015, this heir to Dead Island, to which Techland had had the excellent idea of incorporating a good dose of Mirror's Edge, had however been received lukewarm by the press and players.

It's that apart from the immediate fun provided by its parkour mechanics and the exhilarating violence of its fights, Dying Light had great difficulty in creating anything other than an irrepressible yawn. Its postage stamp scenario and the repetitiveness of the ancillary activities do not plead in its favor.

So we can dream that experience, a budget that we imagine to be much higher and efforts repeatedly emphasized in terms of writing manage to smooth out these rough edges, right? Indeed, we can catch ourselves dreaming.

Pine-Pine Pilgrim Powder

It's 2030. But for those who survived the HCV pandemic 15 years earlier, "the world after" translates less into debates about working from home and regular vaccine reminders than into the most improvisational total. Reduced to scattered enclaves, humanity tries to rebuild itself by dealing, on the one hand, with the zombie threat and on the other with the desires for power of the small faction leaders.

Dying Light 2 test: a game we already know parkour — In the enclave of Villedor, humanity seeks to rebuild itself.

An uncertain world, therefore, that Aiden has chosen to leave to others. The hero of Dying Light 2 has taken the path of Pèlerin: he roams the desolate lands to deliver food and missives, thus ensuring the link between the different colonies. A pitch that immediately reminds us how much Death Stranding is an extraordinary game – but the comparison stops there. Because unlike Sam Porter Bridges, Aiden does his work less out of probity than out of self-interest. He and his sister Mia were separated a decade ago after the explosion at the science complex where other orphans like them were placed under surveillance. And his last track stops in Villedor, which will therefore be the scene of the events of Dying Light 2.

Offering 6 times the area of Harran, and being divided into two large parts (the old town and the city centre), Villedor loses this little exotic side which was also the originality of Dying Light. Located somewhere in Europe, this new terrain of antics thus exposes scenes to which we have become impervious by dint of surveying post-apo games in the open world. We will nevertheless appreciate the great verticality of the whole which, for a parkour enthusiast like Aiden, is like the most beautiful playground. And, for me, poor acrophobic penpusher with fragile ankles, like the promise of a few trips to the emergency room.

Handsome kid with feet of clay

They are proud of it, at Techland, and they are right: Dying Light 2 would have some 3000 parkour animations to make movement more fluid and natural. Well helped in the exercise by Mr. David Belle, founding father (and Spanish!) of the discipline (who also embodies a key character in the game), we will not take away from the studio a certain talent for aerobatics.

Much more agile than the protagonist of the first opus, Aiden will also have new tools at his disposal that will make the difference in escaping the infected. Special mention to the paraglider which, even if it is only obtained in the middle of the game, radically changes the situation for getting around Villedor.

However, perfection not being of this world, there are quite a few hiccups in the execution of Techland. In its commendable desire to allow us to climb on just about any surface, the studio is tripping over its own system. Sometimes our avatar just doesn't know where to turn and grabs the wrong ledge, or starts running on a wall when we just wanted to go down a floor. To put it another way: if the streets of Villedor are carpeted with fresh blood after my visit, the zombies are not always there for something. And it is all the more regrettable that our national Olivier Derivière signs there an adaptive soundtrack of excellent craftsmanship, which accompanies marvelously the least of our movements.

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The paraglider is one of the very good ideas of Dying Light 2.

Accommodating these inaccuracies, we still discover a slow progression system, but effective and engaging for the player or the player. Like a Skyrim, it is by forging that one becomes a blacksmith. Thus there are hardly more than two skill trees in Dying Light 2: one dedicated to combat, the other to parkour. And, to earn experience points, you just have to practice both disciplines.

Chaining long crossings from the roofs by varying the movements gives you experience for the parkour tree. Much like baring a few jaws by sweeping a few infected or belligerent humans off your bat will cause your combat meter to spike. Let's add that these same experience points are doubled if you dare to play at night – when all the zombies are gray (and out).

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Unlockable skills add a real bonus to gameplay variety.

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Villedor does not lack merchants.

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The loot is ubiquitous, and each weapon can receive mods that change its behavior.

Cooperation update

It's been promised from the start: Dying Light 2 will be playable with four players in cooperation, like its predecessor. Excellent news, even if we were only able to verify the stability of the matchmaking at the very end of our test. Indeed the servers opened late. However, we did not encounter any major problem to join a person, or to be joined by a companion.

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Knock out zombies with friends? And why not.

Note, however, that crossplay is on the program... but will be released at a later date. In other words: for now, you will only be able to play with your friends who are on the same platform as you.

Play more to enjoy more

To be completely honest, my first hours on Dying Light 2 were not the most enjoyable. Initially, our arsenal is neither very developed nor very impressive, and our range of movements is quite limited. We simply ward off attacks and retaliate by torturing our mouse or our controller to overcome enemies who are rarely devious. But things get better with time...at least if you're willing to put in the effort.

Progression in Dying Light 2 isn't quite as silly and mean as in Far Cry or Days Gone. Techland has apparently found an ideal crest line between necessity and optimization. As in the first part, the best rewards to obtain will require waiting for the night that the infected somewhat abandon the buildings that we can then go and loot. By doing so, you will not only accumulate better equipment, but also inhibitors which, like the spirit orbs in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, allow you to choose between improving your health or your endurance, and improve your immunity — a novelty that I will come back to below.

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Fighting grants combat xp points; moving nimbly gives parkour points.

By prioritizing endurance, you gain access to new branches of the parkour skill tree; ditto on the health side for combat. There is therefore a balance to be found... or farming to do to embolden yourself before advancing in the story where, it is logical, the enemies will be (a little) more ferocious. So it's better to go in search of components to fill your weapons (with limited durability, let's remember) with mods as powerful... as they are electrifying (you'll understand).

Also, the immunity mechanism adds its two cents to the formula. Bitten very early in the adventure, Aiden must make sure to rest regularly under UV lamps or else he too will become a creature thirsty for human flesh. However, when we arrived in Villedor, this meter only allowed us 4 or 5 minutes of night out. It's pretty short to loot an entire building! A good reason to motivate you to go capture the nearby points of interest, which offer access to UV lamps and various objects allowing you to delay the deadline - or to escape a horde of zomblards who would have chased you . A necessary ubisoftery, one might say.

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At night, you become the prey.

Thus, even if the various activities proposed will end up appearing off-putting (and already seen everywhere else), they serve the game design in a way that is perhaps a little more supported than usual. It doesn't seem like much, but it gives Dying Light 2 a little taste of coming back to it that we frankly wouldn't have thought to lend it.

The mask and the mist

Because it is probably not the scenario of Dying Light 2 which will be enough, alone, to hold you in suspense. The blow of the relative disappeared for ages and whose trace must be found, we have already seen that elsewhere, and in a way much better told than by the nags of Techland.

A missed opportunity for the Poles, who have been gargling for four years about the writing quality of their new game. However, for a studio that is said to be so obsessed with their compatriots from CD Projekt Red, Techland has more storytelling lessons to learn.

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Dying Light 2 has no shortage of characters.

But it is that, like the rest of the development, the scenario of Dying Light 2 probably knew several lives. Remember: the title was originally supposed to be written by Chris Avellone. A leader in RPGs and multiple-choice dialogues (we owe him, pell-mell, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment or even Prey), Avellone finally finished his boxes under his arm, and headed for the door, after several women dragged him away. accused of sexual harassment in 2020.

Which, on paper, should take nothing away from the narrative ambitions of Dying Light 2, however, leaves a taste of unfinished business. Periodically, the game will ask you to make choices. Some are crucial, others fictitious. The rarest will even be downright Cornelian and will have a direct influence on the outcome. A great way to invite players to put a coin back in the machine to measure the impact of their choices – even if we have no real illusions: the game remains the same regardless of the turns made.

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The storyline branches are not that numerous.

Slobbery textures like a zombie

Let's face it: we expected much better from Dying Light 2 in terms of graphics. Fairly neat, the various Techland trailers were careful not to dwell on the details of Villedor's environments. And, the worry is that you may spend time rummaging through drawers and other suitcases left in the many explorable interiors of the city.

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Ah yes Half-Life 2 I know.

It must already be said that a lot of buildings are simply copied and pasted. In camps, chests and other collectible junk are always placed in the same places. In the same way, the electrical or hydraulic stations to be reactivated will certainly offer you a small puzzle to solve, but within a twin architecture.

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Fortunately, some interiors stand out (but you have to refrain from studying them closely).

All of this would probably seem less serious to us if the game still impressed us. Even in Ultra with ray tracing, some textures seem to come out of Half-Life Source. The shadows are very poorly managed, the pop-in is poor, and the whole thing is sorely lacking in relief. For a title that requires at least an RTX 2060 for rendering in 1080p at 60 frames per second, we expected more impressive. We also spare you the exhaustive count of bugs (non-blocking, except during the last boss fight in my case) that have stood in our way. Even if, in all honesty, I expected much worse on this point.

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Cyberpunk 2077 likes this.

And on next-gen console what does it look like?

If we mainly tested the game in its PC version, we were also able to play the PS5 version. No miracles here, the observation is essentially the same as on PC: it's rather ugly. Three graphics modes are available:

Quality (RT): with a frame rate locked at 30 frames/sec, this mode pushes the sliders to the maximum and activates ray tracing to boost the rendering of lighting and offer more realistic reflections. Ray tracing being very resource intensive, the resolution is limited to 1440p in the best case.
Resolution: still stuck at 30 frames/sec, this mode offers native 4K resolution (2160p) with clean and detailed rendering, without ray tracing.
Performance: clearly the essential mode to make the most of combat/parkour gameplay; this one aims for 60 frames / sec, without a hitch, but without ray tracing. This result is achieved at the expense of a resolution oscillating between 1440p indoors or in areas without too much detail, and which can drop to FHD (1080p) in the middle of town. We're not going to lie to you, it's not pretty on a TV with a certain diagonal.

Crop Draft

We will only hold it moderately rigorously at Techland. This is not the first studio to be overtaken by its ambitions. On the other hand, we regret that the (many) dialogues do not allow us to make the (many) characters more endearing. Yet equipped with a quality cast (actress Rosario Dawson plays a key role), the narration struggles to invest us.

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The story is sorely lacking in subtlety.

And, it is dramatic, the Spanish version of the play accentuates absolutely all these evils. Usually, I would tend to skip over this kind of detail in that we are left with the choice of separating voices and dialogues in our selection of languages (the VOSTFR will be available when the game is released, assures me a press officer ). But that's not yet the case for Dying Light 2, which probably has the worst Spanish localization I've seen in years.

It's simple, everything seems translated from English via Google without any contextualization. Examples ? The "hide areas" (under the table, bushes) that allow our character to hide from enemy eyes are translated "hide the area". Cassettes, collectibles that allow you to learn more about the lore of the game are translated into... "adhesive". Yes, “slap” means both in Shakespeare's language – too bad, it was the other!

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Repeat after me :

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"More money for localization in video games!" »

In the state, unlikely to hope for an improvement over the patches. Techland isn't going to spend any more money than it already has on these kinds of ultra-expensive services. The dubbing is done and will not change. So don't be surprised if, during your game, Aiden retorts “understood! to a quest giver when he retrieves the requested object ("Got it", another English polysemy...), or when he oscillates between English and Spanish pronunciation for the first name of his interlocutor.

Welcome to Zombieland

Finally, you probably remember Techland's haphazard communication about the famous "500 hours required to complete the game". The point is, I defy anyone to have the motivation or even the inclination to pull that tight. Dying Light 2 isn't short on content (and a five-year DLC plan is already in the works), but promising so many hours of gameplay is a fabrication.

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Between speed and combat challenges, Dying Light 2 does not lack additional activities.

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Your climbing skills will be put to the test regularly.

I completed the scenario in 22 hours, and pushed up to 30 in order to unlock all the metro stations and restart all the windmills. Do I still have things to do in Villedor? Yes. Do I want to do them? Not at all. It is that at the end of the 40th abandoned convoy emptied of its prowlers; from the 14th abandoned store looted and from the 5th zone boss copied and pasted, we end up getting bored. Even if there were still 200 to check off the to-do list.

Dying Light 2's problem comes less from the fact that its side activities are all alike than its open world never gives us the illusion of being alive. So yes, I know, it's zombie game. It's quite logical. But by that I mean Techland's game is rigor mortis (you got it?).

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All copied and pasted, the zone bosses will soon no longer cause you any problems.

Can't talk to an NPC that hasn't returned exactly to its original location; impossible to visit certain areas if no quest takes us there. To illustrate this point, I will cite the example of the largest enemy camp in Villedor, which you only visit once during the adventure. If you go back there after the end of the game, apart from the quest that should take us there, it will simply be empty. Even though the group still represents a threat in the city center. And that's how you make a Celio Club suit look like a ceremonial tuxedo.

Dying Light 2: the opinion of JVFR

In the end, what are we complaining about? It's written on the box from the beginning: it's Dying Light. The two. The formula only evolves marginally, and we measure Techland's efforts more by the scale of the project than by the extent of the new features presented to us.

Not bad for a penny (except graphically and in terms of its catastrophic localization), Dying Light 2 will appeal without any harm to those who hold the first in high esteem. But, for the same reasons, it will also leave out people who were not seduced by Techland's proposal in 2015.

But Dying Light 2 is not lazy. He tries things, whether on the side of his narration (it failed) or his progression system (it is validated). In reality, and to add to the conclusion of the telephone test, Techland's new game above all testifies to the maturity of a studio which, after 21 years of existence, should allow itself to explore a new genre. Although not memorable, Dying Light 2 piques my curiosity and bodes well for the future of Techland.

Dying Light 2

Dying Light 2 is Dying Light, only better. Larger, more generous and better controlled in many aspects, the new Techland still comes up against the wall of a telephone scenario and a shaky narration. Despite everything, we have fun there, as the combat and the movements are exhilarating.