Dying Light: The Beast Is a Hobbled, Misguided Mess (Review)

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Dying Light: The Beast aims to deliver a similar experience to standalone expansions like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. This focused approach is particularly welcome for Dying Light, as the sequel, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, felt unfocused and lacked depth. However, The Beast doesn’t capitalize on this tighter format and unfortunately reinforces the weakest parts of the series instead.

Okay, so I’m really into this game, but honestly, the parkour can be *so* frustrating. You’ll be running through these beautiful, alpine-inspired levels, and when it works, it’s amazing – like, smoothly hopping across rooftops and jumping over obstacles feels incredible. But way too often, you just…fall. There are so many little things that can break your flow, and it happens constantly. It’s a real shame because when it *does* click, it’s a total rush, but it’s just too rare.

Despite some strange glitches where Kyle Crane struggles to hold onto surfaces or slips while climbing, the biggest problem remains the climbing mechanics themselves. Getting over obstacles is painfully slow, forcing players to start from a crawl whenever they try to climb vertically or don’t land cleanly on a ledge – which happens often because the grappling hook is unreliable. Because the environment isn’t smooth, this constant stopping and starting breaks the flow of movement that’s essential to parkour.

Rating: 2/5

Pros Cons
Freerunning can be thrilling at times. Abysmal, repetitive boss fights.
Clunky parkour controls that continually halt momentum.
Mashy melee combat and out-of-place gunplay.
Hollow, melodramatic, and predictable story.
A general lack of focus.

Dying Light: The Beast‘s Doesn’t Lean Into Its Strengths

A major problem from the previous game continues to plague this installment, deeply affecting its core design. Too many missions trap players in tight, dark spaces or force them to slowly climb and solve frustrating puzzles, constantly breaking up the gameplay with dull cutscenes featuring radio chatter. Despite the series’ reputation for smooth movement and platforming, this game – continuing a disappointing trend – frequently restricts players or slows them down, which clashes with the fast-paced experience it aims to deliver. While a few missions offer exciting, high-speed chases, these moments are brief and only hint at the game’s potential if it fully embraced what makes it special.

The Beast frequently relies on gameplay elements that don’t showcase its best features. While the close-quarters combat is viscerally satisfying, it quickly becomes repetitive and overly frequent. Constantly fighting your way out of situations gets tiresome, especially since the game doesn’t offer much innovation in this area, largely reusing elements from Dying Light 2, including a frustratingly simplistic rage mode. Enemies, both infected and human, are overly durable, unnecessarily prolonging fights. Boss battles amplify all these problems, becoming frustrating endurance tests where players spend several minutes relentlessly attacking while the boss repeats the same limited moveset, often alongside waves of weaker enemies.

Although guns are possible to use, they ultimately create more problems than they solve. While they function well, being attacked by enemies while already engaged in close combat feels awkward and doesn’t quite fit the style of *Dying Light*. The developers of *Dying Light 2* made a smart choice by initially leaving firearms out of the game (though they were added back in later), and *The Beast* further proves how unsuitable guns are for this type of zombie experience.

Dying Light: The Beast Should Have Been More Focused

Honestly, the guns aren’t the biggest problem with *The Beast*. The real issue is it tries to do *way* too much. It’s an open-world zombie survival game with co-op for up to four players, crafting, stealth, loot, skill trees, guns, melee, driving… the list goes on! It feels like they threw everything at the wall, but nothing really feels polished or finished. It’s a bit overwhelming, and none of the features are quite as good as they could be.

Beyond the noticeable issues with fighting and movement, the stealth gameplay feels clunky and forces players to slow down. The rewards you find aren’t worthwhile, offering tiny improvements like a slight reduction in weapon recoil or minimal resistance to enemy damage. The skill upgrades are either pointless or feel directly copied from *Dying Light 2*. The day/night cycle creates a good contrast – nighttime is more challenging – but trying to escape the powerful Volatiles is often frustrating due to awkward controls and their overwhelming strength. With so many unnecessary features, *The Beast* shows that the *Dying Light* series needs to simplify, concentrate on what it does best, and avoid trying to be everything at once.

Dying Light: The Beast Spends Too Much Time on Its Boring Story

The game’s story doesn’t quite work because it misinterprets the kind of experience *The Beast* should be. While the idea of Kyle seeking revenge after years of experimentation is solid, the game is bogged down by lengthy cutscenes featuring uninteresting characters – including Kyle himself – who don’t develop over the course of the story. The objectives don’t create tension or deepen our understanding of the characters, and often involve unnecessary steps and repetitive walkie-talkie sequences that interrupt the flow. Add to that a weak villain and a predictable plot twist, and *The Beast* ultimately struggles to tell a story it tries too hard to focus on.

The biggest problem with *Dying Light: The Beast* is that it doesn’t prioritize what makes it special. Its unique parkour movement should be the core of the game, but clunky controls and constant interruptions hold it back. Other features, like sneaking, fighting, and character progression, feel underdeveloped and unnecessary – they add bulk without substance. Ultimately, trying to do too much hurts the game’s overall quality, and it falls short of its potential.

A review copy for PS5 was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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2025-09-22 20:11