Still, Dying Light 2 expects a lot of its players’ time, and that investment is too often repaid in scenes that are resolved with expository dialogue that stands preceding developments on their head. As slow as the going is in the first half of Dying Light 2’s central story branch, the unlocking of new combat tactics or parkour techniques unfolds even more slowly unless you’re also constantly looting zombie hives in the unstructured nighttime gameplay loop. In fact, the extra side quests and in-world events deliver a lot of the loot and XP that helps your character’s progression keep within hollering distance of the story. Instead, Dying Light 2’s story feels more like a rough draft that the player must finish with a lot of side activities.įor those who come in as fans of the original Dying Light, especially for its hard-hitting melee combat and fleet-footed free-running moves, this profusion of extra missions may not feel like much obligation. At least, it might have if the game’s ambiguity felt more intentional. Used well, this kind of vexing indecision could have elevated Dying Light 2’s color-by-numbers narrative into something with a bigger emotional payoff. So here I was again in Dying Light 2, putting in a lot of extra work - against a timer, no less - to care about characters and situations that aren’t central to the story. Taking people at face value in this game had already earned me some legitimately angering betrayals. In an instant, I went from a desultory side quest to making a decision with huge stakes. As I was parkouring back to the sick bay, the game gave me a strange update: “Choose which medicine to give him.” Wait, why wouldn’t I give him the correct dose? Only then did it occur to me that the blind witch might have been lying, intending for me to poison him as revenge for what his faction did to her. Zombies only mildly inconvenienced me as I snatched up the item. She provides the player character, Aiden, with specific instructions on what to gather, when to gather it, and what parts to administer to the dying man. But seeing as how this version of the zombie apocalypse has - quite convincingly - turned the fictional European city of Villedor into a Middle Age society, the only remedy is folk medicine from a blind witch. Right now, an ally is gravely wounded and needs medicine urgently. You’re a stranger in a strange land, searching for a lost loved one and finding yourself pivotal to a dying city’s fight for survival. It unfolds like a bog-standard fetch quest. Midway through Dying Light 2 Stay Human, I took a side mission that, in hindsight, neatly summarized the strange pacing and unmet ambitions of its larger story - a story that often struggles to match the compelling gameplay and richly detailed world that developer Techland has created.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |