Ḥarām Anachronism: Dying Light Review

The great advantage of the zombie, as a gameplay mechanic, is exactly that quality which had, until recently, resulted in its near extinction. Zombies are slow, relatively limited to close quarters combat, and unintelligent; put simply: zombies kinda suck. It is this very quality which made them so useful to the survival horror genre wherein the mechanics were often awkward and the level design convoluted and confusing, but is utterly impractical in the action genre which has since superseded survival horror. Yet, the survival horror genre, because of the presence of the zombie, still managed to convey a sense of consistent tension that was rarely broken by how ineffectual the zombie actually is. If one were caught by a zombie, one generally had a chance to escape, but the damage done in the attack could have far reaching repercussions, affecting anything from item management to a character’s sanity. But because zombies are, ostensibly, so weak and slow, one can’t help but be tempted to take risks one might otherwise not if zombies were, say, possessed by a sadomasoautocannibalistic serpentine parasite. Dying Light, contrary to genre conventions, proves that zombies, not merely the possessed, can be effective in the context of action for the very same reason they are effective in survival horror; a genre that, in its purest form, denies the player action.

Mechanically Dying Light could not be further removed from the survival horror genre; movement is slick and smooth, borrowing from Mirror’s Edge but applying its mechanical principles to a natural environment with a greater sense of freedom: the challenge of Dying Light’s platforming is not in skilful climbing and speed, but navigation and memorisation; one must quickly learn the safest, fastest routes through Harran for, when night falls, early on, one is entirely at the mercy of a breed of super agile, aggressive and powerful zombies; not to mention (in theory) zombie invasions by another player. The combat is simple almost to a fault, with firearms being rare (and ineffective against zombies; though vital against firearmed humans) and melee weapons are, at first, weak and impractical. But one soon scavenges better weapons, upgrades them, and it is at this point where the combat comes into its own. The power of one’s customised arsenal is intoxicating; tempting one into battles against innumerable zombies, or powerful zombies equipped with melee weapons of their own that were, not so long ago, all but invulnerable.

Due to the narrow field of view inherent in the first person perspective, combat is claustrophobic, with the slowly approaching zombie horde invisible behind—invisible in front for the throng obscuring their brethren behind. Escape is also made more difficult than it otherwise would be due to this limited field of view, and memorisation of the environment and the herd’s composition as viewed from a distance is vital early on. This is enough for the inexperienced to contend with that avoiding combat unless explicitly required by an objective is at the beginning the most expedient course of action. But one is compelled to kill because the more one kills, the more powerful one becomes; just as the more one climbs, the more agile one becomes—the more missions one completes, the more savvy one becomes. For levelling up in this way, beyond the incremental and the incidental, one is rewarded with mechanics that one would usually expect to find unlocked by default (such as sliding). But because levels are unlocked so fast, the intelligent player unlocks mechanics at a fast enough rate that the receding handicap adds to the tangible sense of progression. The unending loss and then acquisition of items (equipment degrades, and medkits and other vital items are scarce early on) adds to this sense of progression, and encourages risk and exploration.

Thus the opening is uncompromising and, at times, almost daunting. But this initial difficulty allows the inevitable endgame wherein one has become something of a zombie-slaying demigod to feel cathartic rather than anticlimactic. Indeed, the horror of the night—in which one had once scrambled desperately to the nearest safehouse (effectively checkpoints, most of which must be unlocked in concise action skirmishes)—becomes almost indistinguishable from the relative tranquillity of the day; one now continues to traverse rooftops, slaughter zombies en masse, or grapple-hook out of trouble if one has become too arrogant for one’s own good whether the sun has risen or not. The satisfaction elicited by such a gradual rise to power is immense. And it’s a testament to the detailed design of Harran that those early blind dashes to the nearest safehouse were rarely frustrating, yet the more assured night time traversals of the endgame are still satisfying and natural in flow.

The sense of progression may be summarised with one example: lockpicking. To begin with, one is hesitant to pick a lock out in the open. Then one, painstakingly, kills all zombies near the lock one intends to pick. Then one slaughters them as a matter of course. Then one takes one’s first tentative, explorative steps at night, and goes through the same process—until one, at last, casually camouflages oneself in the scent of a zombie, and so picks a lock in front of an entire horde without even flinching no matter the time of day.

It is a pity, then, that the more structured moments of Dying Light often falter. The missions, whether main or side, coalesce first into a tepid exercise in item collection, and second into slower-paced action set pieces in which one walks lethargically through a building dispatching zombies or firearmed humans. These latter missions rarely combine platforming with combat as effectively as they naturally occur as one explores the world or moves from safehouse to objective or vice versa; wandering spontaneously into random (read: scripted) events. Dying Light is also wont to eat the player’s carefully accrued and composed equipment when, for the purpose of the narrative, it removes the player’s items; promising to return them, but failing to do so due to a glitch—unless one has simply lost one’s items in the clutter of the inadequately sort-able item menus. Worse still, for this writer, actually connecting to a game is an exercise in mind numbing repetition (select join game ad infinitum) until one successfully connects to a compatible partner or opponent; though if I set invasions to frequent I was, indeed, frequently invaded.

Nevertheless, one can’t help but be impressed for, beyond the achievements in mechanical and world design, Techland have provided further proof in Dying Light that zombie hordes in an action context makes sense; even when removed from the confines of a horde mode. This impressive achievement is complemented by the sometimes intense, sometimes clever, asymmetrical Be a Zombie Mode (which is better still when playing with or against multiple humans who understand how to use flares as spawn points; otherwise, being a human who understands how to use flares as spawn points, it can be awfully easy regardless of the side one is on) that plays something like an ultraviol[n]t version of Spider-Man or Alien versus Predator 2. If only the indoor explorations had the tension of the zombie mechanic pioneers of old, and the netcode was half as robust as a tank.