"Dying Light: The Beast": Excellent zombie action with technical weaknesses

Domagoj Belancic

18/9/2025

Translation: machine translated

Pictures: Domagoj Belancic

"Dying Light: The Beast" convinces with excellent game mechanics and a brutal production. Annoying bugs spoil my enjoyment of the zombie massacre.

In my preview of «Dying Light: The Beast», I was thoroughly impressed by the new zombie project from Polish developer studio Techland. Franchise director Tymon Smektała even announced that it was the best game his studio had ever developed.

Now I've had a chance to get an impression of the final product - and I'm divided.

I can sense the great ambitions that the studio has for the title. Brutally murdering zombies against a picturesque (Alpine) backdrop has never felt so good. Unfortunately, bugs and repetitive elements sabotage the great potential of this bloody spectacle.

Kyle fucking Crane is back

In the third instalment of the series, the protagonist of the first game returns: Kyle Crane. He has survived a lot erlebt since his zombie adventures in Harran. The muscleman was held captive by a mad scientist - the «Baron» - and subjected to various experiments.

These have literally turned the already almost superhuman action hero into a beast. Kyle turns into a destructive, uncontrollable monster when he gets angry. He escapes from the lab and swears bloody revenge on the Baron.

You might have guessed it from my summary: the story is just an alibi so that I can cause chaos in the zombie-infested world of «Dying Light: The Beast».

The characters are also correspondingly flat. Kyle's range of emotions is just as limited as his facial expressions. The muscleman shines in dialogues with a limited vocabulary and lots of F-bombs. The characters he meets on his journey have comparatively more depth and a more exciting backstory than the protagonist.

This is not to criticise the game. I don't expect an emotional story that makes me cry and think. I want to slaughter zombies and make heads explode. And that's what «Dying Light: The Beast» does brilliantly.

Parkour par excellence and bloodthirsty close combat

As in its predecessors, the gameplay construct of «Dying Light: The Beast» consists of three pillars: parkour, melee combat and ranged combat. All three pillars are brilliantly implemented in the latest instalment.

I'm a particular fan of the first. Kyle jumps over rooftops, obstacles and zombies in cinematic style.

Controlling Kyle feels fantastic. Chaining together different parkour actions works flawlessly and is incredibly satisfying. «Dying Light: The Beast» manages the delicate balancing act between automated sequences and manual control like no other game.

The fact that I'm occasionally unsure where I can jump and which ledge I can hold on to is annoying, but doesn't cloud my overall impression of Kyle's acrobatic skills too much.

The melee combat is also very satisfying. I have a variety of clubs, machetes, sledgehammers and other murder weapons at my disposal. I can upgrade them with mods such as poison or fire as required. It's not possible to strike mindlessly - Kyle may have powerful muscles, but he «also suffers» from a stamina gauge that empties with every swing and evasive manoeuvre.

The blows he delivers feel really powering. I feel the impact of my blows on the walking corpses. I see it too - and how. «Dying Light: The Beast» is mercilessly explicit.

When I attack zombies, I see split skullcaps with brains spilling out. Eyes fall out of the skull cavities. Jaws come loose from knife swings. Guts fall out of the stomach and hang down. Heads and limbs fly, accompanied by massive fountains of blood. An absolute massacre.

The close combat gets even more brutal with the eponymous «Beast Mode». If Kyle kills enough zombies or takes enough damage, he automatically transforms into a superhuman beast. As the game progresses, I learn to control this superpower and use it when necessary.

As a beast, Kyle literally tears his opponents apart. He punches through bodies, cuts off heads with his hands and throws huge rocks. The whole thing only lasts a few seconds, then the brutal fun is over. A successful addition to the tried and tested «Dying Light» game formula.

The ranged weapons - including pistols, machine guns and bows and arrows - play a subordinate role compared to close combat. Ammunition is scarce. The guns are therefore rarely used. The gunplay does not feel as sophisticated as the melee combat.

«What's nice» is that Techland shows the same love of gore detail with the guns as it does with the melee weapons. When I land a headshot, my opponent's head bursts like a Vienna sausage that's been in the microwave for too long.

I'm telling you: this game is disgusting. And I mean that as a huge compliment to the development studio.

Cracking open world somewhere between Alpine scenery and «Twin Peaks»

The area in which the Baron is up to mischief is called «Castor Woods» - a beautiful national park located somewhere in the Western Alps. However, the vegetation is more reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest of the USA - «Twin Peaks» was a great inspiration for the game.

Graphically, the exciting combination of influences certainly looks pretty - especially when it rains. The visuals are sometimes marred by noticeable pop-in effects and muddy textures.

The open world of Castor Woods is compact, but full of zombies, abandoned houses, random events and side quests. If I just follow the story, I need around 20 hours to complete the game. If I want to see everything on the map, it can easily be over 50, according to Techland.

There is no fast-travel system. Every journey from point A to point B becomes a potentially life-threatening adventure. My main motivation for exploring the world: Loot, loot, loot. I use the items I collect to make auxiliary items such as bandages, craft new weapons or earn money.

Exploring is risky, however. If I die, I lose valuable experience points. It gets even riskier at night. That's when the «Volatiles» familiar from the previous games come crawling out of their holes - virtually invincible super zombies that hunt me until I'm dead.

In contrast to the previous games, in addition to densely populated, vertically built urban areas, there are also many expansive, flat natural areas. In these areas, the game feels more like horror than usual. Especially at night, it is really unpleasant to run alone through a dark forest. Quickly climbing onto a house and jumping over rooftops to escape the Volatiles is not possible in nature.

The game forces me to rethink and be more careful.

To cross the flatter natural areas, I now also have cars at my disposal. There are a few of them in Castor Woods and they conveniently always have a bit of petrol in the tank.

I love racing around off-road tracks in the Ranger cars while killing zombies left and right. However, the motorised fun doesn't last long - the tank is quickly empty and the cars simply break down. Overall, the vehicles are another successful innovation that is seamlessly integrated into the gameplay construct and open-world design of «Dying Light: The Beast».

Lots of repetition, lots of repetition

I am positively surprised by the staging of many missions - the side missions in particular offer great little stories. The side quests are not just throwaways, but have real meat on their bones and enrich the game world immensely.

Sometimes I help a son to free his demented father from a zombie cave. And sometimes I'm looking for ingredients for psychedelic drugs for a crazy hippie scientist. Cool!

Despite the exciting production, I am disappointed by the lengthy and repetitive mission structure as the game progresses. As much as I love the parkour, melee and car gameplay, the game utilises these elements a little too much in the missions. Too often I have to climb for forever, mow down infinite numbers of zombies or run times across the map to complete a mission. It's fun at first, but the initial euphoria wears off after what feels like the hundredth time.

With a few exceptions (such as the last few crazy quests around the brilliant finale), there are no big surprises. Moments that leave me amazed. Missions that I want to discuss with someone immediately after completing them.

The spectacularly staged boss fights against the «Chimeras» provide some variety - at least in theory. These are particularly powerful experiments that have escaped from the Baron's laboratory. The more of them I kill, the more beast abilities I unlock.

For my taste, the powerful creatures have a little too much life energy and I cause a little too little damage. The boss fights thus degenerate into never-ending chores that are also repeated (too) often in the course of the story.

At this point I would like to point out that the entire adventure can also be played in co-op mode with up to three other Kyle Cranes at the same time. The game progress is counted for all participants. Very cool. However, I only went on the hunt for the Baron solo for the test - as I would have done otherwise.

Annoying bugs

Technically, the game doesn't cut a good figure. First the positive: I tested the game on the PS5 Pro in performance mode. In this mode, the game always runs smoothly with VRR support.

And now the bad news: When testing, I encountered numerous bugs that disrupted the flow of the game. Below is a list of the problems I encountered during the 20 hours of playtime:

• Sometimes the photo mode cannot be activated - to solve the problem, I restart the game.
• UI problems: Selected weapons are not visible, quest markers disappear, annoying overlays appear that keep pointing to «unused skill points» even though I have used all the points.
• Black screen: In the open world, I am sometimes disturbed by a black screen that interrupts the action for a few moments.
• In several places the game no longer recognises my inputs - here too: Restart.
• I have to reload some quests. Certain events are not triggered, which is why I'm stuck. Again, only a restart helps.

What is initially just a bit annoying with isolated bugs develops into an ever-increasing problem as the game progresses. With every new bug «I trust» the game less. I play the game in fear of getting «stuck forever» - not least because I can't create manual saves.

What a shame - the annoying bugs not only leave a bland aftertaste, but also have a lasting negative effect on my gaming experience. In many ways, they are even scarier than the hideous zombies in Castor Woods.

«Dying Light: The Beast» is available now for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. PS4 and Xbox One will follow later. The game was provided to me for testing purposes by Techland for the PS5 (Pro).

Domagoj Belancic

Senior Editor

Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.ch

My love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.

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