Some good, some bad - the game
I personally found Dying Light The Beast very difficult to review.
As the third game in the Dying Light series, it tries to bridge the gap left between the first and the second instalment, trying to go back to "the roots" of the first game, but also not giving up on the gameplay and creative changes introduced in the second game.
It's a tall order to fill, and while it doesn't necessarily fail, it also doesn't completely manage to live up to the promised.
It's really nice to see Kyle again, even in these (for him) unfortunate circumstances. Trapped and experimented on, he's finally free and ready for payback.
While nostalgic to have him and his snappy attitude back, the story itself leaves a lot to be desired.
It's really quite simple and straightforward, backed up by a vague goal of revenge.
Feels as if Kyle is an elephant clumsily flailing around with no clear objective or idea on how to execute said goal.
Definitely doesn't help that the supporting cast is so bland that I've forgotten who they were the moment their quest chain was completed.
Dying Light as a franchise was never a quality storytelling one, it offered a straightforward story backed with parkour and zombies, but it did have a varied cast of side characters, plenty of side quests and snippets of conversations, interesting in their own weird way.
Here, not so much.. Which comes to the point, the game felt too short, really short.. Empty.
The gameplay itself was fine, interestingly it felt a lot more clunky, both parkour and combat compared to the second game. I often found myself getting grabbed from 5m away or my melee attack missing if the reticle was 1mm off.
Apart from the beast mode, which was a very fun addition, it felt weird to not have the already fleshed out flighting controls and options from DL2.
Sure the base was there, but the weapon mods felt strangely ineffective, combat parkour was almost non existent or had a clunky setup and the skill tree was pretty small and basic (not counting beast mode). Executions, while present, were repetitive and felt weird at times.
Only the centre of the map, the town, had somewhat of a notion of actual parkour and climbing, it still generally felt heavily reduced and not as impactful even there.
Outside of that small zone, you have the vehicle for moving around, a 4x4 pickup truck, which is cool stuff!
They added a vehicle to the game, a highly requested thing ever since DL1 The Following.
The weird choice there was, it was not a personal vehicle, as the buggy was, which you could upgrade, fix and modify or call back to you at certain spots on the map.
It was, in fact, a basic respawnable car you'd find at the exact same spots in the exact same condition every single time. There weren't even different skins you could find in the wild, just two - a green one for "the good guys" and a black one for the enemy faction.
Really felt disconnected with it.
Why care about that specific one you found when it'll disappear after a cutscene or you'll find the exact same one 200m away? Why even refuel when you can swap cars just as easily?
Generally, everything feels too flashy, too new, not rugged enough. The buildings are old and falling apart but survivors have fancy new jewelry, mint condition clothes and pristine new guns and weapons.
Cars had a couple of scratches but felt futuristic for the time and with spotless interiors.
Safezones were "protected" by a single UV lightbulb at the entrance, it felt as if the world wasn't even affected by the zombie virus.
Lore wise human settlements were few and far between, barely hanging on.
No survivors on the streets, fighting, scavenging, whatever really.. Empty or bling bling brand new, no in between.
Don't get me started on the volatiles, the game advertises hives, but those "hives" are actually a single volatile larva (the one stuck to the floor), which you kill and loot it's corpse - that's it. That's all.
There's a couple of missions that involve volatiles, but it's mostly for cosmetics, there's not actual fighting nor any content revolving them in the world. They're also not in the dark zones, at all.
So whether you go in those during the day or night, it doesn't really matter, the zombies will always be the same, a couple of runners, 1-2 screamers and the shamblers.
It's not all bad, of course, the music was solid as ever, the graphics and gore were pretty well done, and the special zombies were more satisfying to fight against compared to DL2 (no more invincibility windows). Same goes with performance, it ran smooth with a couple of rare frame drops.
But I wanted to point out the major flaws that could or will affect someone buying this game.
For the asking price it's too short.
Not enough missions, general worldbuilding activities, content or variety. I don't feel it has enough to be called a standalone game or warrant a price matching that.
