Things We’re Stoked For: Dying Light
"Great… Another open world zombie game… "sarcasm totally intended… Is what we would have said if any other zombie themed game was in the works.
Let's face it, there is no other group of people who love Zombie Horror more than the team at HefferBrew, and I dare you to challenge that. We've played all of the games, obsessed over easter eggs, dissected every wrong move by a main character, and even enjoy running away from random people in public because our cell phones tell us too.
When we got word that Techland was working on a new zombie title naturally our interests were peaked, after all they did bring the awesome "Dead Island" to the stage – so they should know what they're doing in the zombie genre. Dying Light does share some parts of the Dead Island format, most importantly (and thankfully) the weapon crafting system. Techland is being tight lipped about how far you can go with the crafting this time, but early reports say the combinations for weapons are in the thousands.
Now, what really sets Dying Light apart from the Dead Island games is it's addition of first person free-running. Similar to that of 2008′s Mirrors Edge - giving you the ability to parkour your way around a sprawling open world with very few limitations on exploration. The world, in this case, screams Brazil right in your face and is full of large hills covered in little shanty drug shacks just begging to be jumped on. Unlike Mirrors Edge, you're encouraged to fight in Dying Light, and I can already imagine the screen captures of people flying into a pile of walkers with a poisonous, saw blade adorned baseball bat. Editor's note: Make that a Miguel song, "Let my poisonous saw blade-baseball bat, adorn you…yeah baby!"
Why have the name "Dying Light" if the time of day means nothing? Good thing I'm here to answer your questions.
Gone are the days where day and night are just annoying changes in screen brightness and shading, now the night is similar to the darkness in Silent Hill – once the sun goes down, all hell breaks loose. Zombies become more aggressive and are much harder to see in the dark, and jumping roof to roof is a challenge in the dead of night. This means you will be forced to interact with hordes when the sun goes down, and hopefully not get ripped to shreds. The upside is, and admittedly it isn't much of an upside – you're already infected.
Stealing a page right out of Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead" Techland has decided to infect you right from the get go. Survival is still your goal, but being bit won't ruin your day more than it already has been by all the apocalypse things happening in your busy day. A nifty side effect of being infected, but not a total zombie yet, is that you can sense other zombies when they are near. This hopes to be helpful when it comes to sneaking around in back alleys in the dark, and not getting your ass chewed off.
If this screen grab is any indication, we can bet that it is your goal to find out who or what is behind this outbreak, how you can save yourself and what in the world did these government looking types doing out here? Remember, zombies… so you probably don't want to trust the government at all.
In any case, we hope Dying Light can reanimate the life of the zombie inspired video game genre. They seem to be on the right track so far, and with a year until release they have plenty of time to make sure it stays that way.
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