Dying Light 2: 10 Crucial Things It Must Improve
How to make killing athletic zombies even MORE fun.
2015's Dying Light flew under the radar, for the most part. Written off as yet another zombie game in a year saturated with such brilliant titles as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Fallout 4, and Batman: Arkham Knight, Dying Light's run was largely unremarkable. Which is a shame, because it is one of the most lovingly crafted games in recently memory.
Dying Light included two huge open-world maps, consistently added free DLC, developed one of the most expansive paid DLC offerings ever, and featured an incredibly addicting online multiplayer mode, to say nothing of the stellar combat, traversal, and setting.
It came as a bit of a shock when a sequel was announced at the 2018 E3. Dying Light 2 looks like an incredibly ambitious title, featuring branching choice narratives and faction warfare. All of this sounds like a recipe for a truly incredible game that finally gets its due.
However, the original game had its own set of flaws, all of which should be addressed to make it the fully realised masterpiece that it definitely has the potential to be.
- MINOR SPOILERS ahead -
10. Rework Weapon Degradation
Weapon degradation has largely been a blight upon games. Notably, it's considered almost universally to be the one thing keeping The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from being an absolute masterpiece. While it does add to a game's "realism," it does subtract from the fun.
Dying Light also suffered from this. Players would find an incredible weapon capable of slaughtering hordes of zombies, only to stick it in their inventory and forget about it, forever to be used "later." This is because every single weapon in the game came with a preset number of fixes. Once those were used up, the weapon was a pile of scrap metal.
This also had the added downfall of discouraging players from modifying their weapons. Why spend all the materials and money needed to make an electric katana when it will become unusable in a few hours?
One fix is to combine systems from the previous game with something like Witcher 3. Weapons are still given a set number of fixes... in the field. However, weapons can be brought to an in-game specialist and have their fixes reset for a cost. (in-game currency, not microtransactions, don't get any ideas)
This would provide a helpful balance between creating something immersive while maintaining the fun of using, again, an electric freaking katana.