WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the game. If you haven't played the game, here's a tldr: awesome gameplay, good soundtrack, beautiful visuals but not so good story.

Dying Light 2, the sequel to a game that is one of my favourites of all time. After spending 50 hours playing it (granted, I am a little late), I find it...

Disappointing.

Don't get me wrong. It is a good game with amazing visuals, a great soundtrack, and bloody marvellous gameplay. If you like action FPS games, go buy it, you WILL NOT regret it.

The gameplay is so much fun with tons of parkour moves, fast-paced chases and blood-pumping combat. Sometimes I found myself just aimlessly running around and enjoying the random encounters and parkour. You don't need missions or a story to enjoy this game. Just traversing the beautiful city of Villedor is rewarding on its own. Techland definitely nailed the "design the level around character movement" philosophy perfectly, kudos to all the designers. This is undeniably a step up from the previous game.

The soundtrack is a very pleasant surprise to me, the songs are not too varied but very fitting for the tone and it's just such a nice feeling to hear a song ramp up while freerunning or gliding over the streets. Voice acting can be rough at times but I believe the main characters are pretty good. Jonah Scott did a brilliant job with Aiden and it kind of sounds like Roger Craig's Crane, which is welcome.

The visuals are lovely. The city is colourful but not comical, detailed but not cluttered. Though some parts feel like they've been copied and pasted between many places, I can look past them because it makes sense for player familiarity with the environment. It could be very confusing for the players if everything was unique and they had to look all around just to see how they could climb a building. The unique locations you go into have lots of thought put into them. In a home, the shelves are toppled over, pictures are askew, and clothes and personal belongings are strewn about. In a store, it has been looted, and the cash register is bashed open. It all looks so real and it makes the world feel like it's lived in. Animations are mostly smooth, there is some jank here and there but it's not immersion-breaking. It is very nice to look at characters while they are doing stuff, be it running, fighting or drinking at a bar.

The rest of the review is me ranting about the story and the ending so here's another SPOILER warning.

The story is...lacking. There is not much point in the story. It is confusing, and the ending is just terrible, disappointing, and not as clever as it tries to be. It feels like they tried to make a game where Choices Matter™ but did not want to deal with the consequences of those choices so when the player chooses something, it usually only changes the way characters say things but still proceeds in a pre-determined way. I deliberately tried to make choices that I felt the game didn't want me to make and it was unpleasant to see that my choices did not matter at all. Feels like Fallout 4, but supercharged, or rather, Fallout 4 on crack. I know, I know, completely different games, but it's the same feeling. It is a promise that was not delivered upon.

Until I started the epilogue, I still had some hope for some good closure, but no. The epilogue kind of just lumps up everything thrown at you throughout the main storyline and rushes to end it in a way that is just very unsatisfying. Leaving me with still lots of questions, and very disappointed. There are many moving parts and they just do not work with each other.

Throughout the game, you meet all sorts of characters. Anarchists, militarists, survivors, bandits, and all of them want something from you. The game tries to make you feel like your choices matter, but they really don't. The game just forces you down a path, and the only choice you get is which group of people you want to side with. But it doesn't matter who you side with, because the ending is the same. So why even bother with the choice?

The game also clearly takes the side of Survivors, however, they are the arseholes from the very start of the game. Everyone you meet from Survivors either tries to kill you, scam you, or just be general nuisances. So why would the game want you to side with them? It doesn't make sense. Most of the likeable characters are either Peacekeepers or neutral. There aren't many people from Survivors that I actually gave a crap about.

Aiden Caldwell, the protagonist of the game spends 15 years looking for his sister Mia and you spend dozens of hours with the game shoving that down your throat only for you to find her and not be able to save her?? Storywise, you should be able to save her (costing a lot in the process), but the game doesn't let you make that choice. For some reason, at the end of the game, Aiden has completely different motives and doesn't want to save her sister anymore. This could have worked, only if Aiden's character was developed in a way that makes it believable. But no, it is not.

Towards the midpoint of the game, Aiden meets Lawan, a young female who he falls in love (or rather develops a relationship) with, the game shoves that down your throat as well. And again, the relationship is not developed in a way that makes it believable. Never once through this whole game, I felt any connection between Aiden and Lawan. There is no reason for Aiden to care about her, yet he does and vice versa. It is just not believable. Until the point where they started showing signs of love through their "relationship", they barely talked to each other. They didn't even know each other. It was just a few cutscenes in a few story missions, and suddenly they are in love? No, it doesn't work.

So at the end of the epilogue, some absolutely insane things happen and you are given two choices. Either you can save the whole city or sacrifice Lawan. While you can "save" Mia if you let Hakon live, you can't actually save her. In the epilogue, she dies anyway. She is also revealed to not be Aiden's sister in a brief 30sec dialogue? It makes no sense. So the game basically tells you "Hey, you spent all this time looking for your sister, but actually she is not your sister. And also you can't save her, but you can save this other girl who you barely know and are in love with". It is a terrible choice, and I feel like the game didn't give me enough information to make a choice. And after Mia is "saved", she still dies within 2 hours. 15 years of looking for her, and she dies right after you find her. And Aiden just kind of... shrugs it off? It is terrible writing and a terrible story.

I'm sorry, I know this review is long, but I just had to get this off my chest. I love the game, I really do, but the story just ruined all the immersion for me. I can't recommend this game to anyone who wants a good story. If you want a game that you can just open and start enjoying immediately, this is it. The gameplay, visuals, and soundtrack all make an amazing experience, but the story is just awful. It is very frustrating to see such amazing world-building with uninspired writing.

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the game. If you haven't played the game, here's a tldr: awesome gameplay, good soundtrack, beautiful visuals but not so good story. Dying Light 2, the sequel to a game that is one of my favourites of all time. After spending 50 hours playing it (granted, I am a little late), I find it... Disappointing. Don't get me wrong. It is a good game with amazing visuals, a great soundtrack, and bloody marvellous gameplay. If you like action FPS games, go buy it, you WILL NOT regret it. The gameplay is so much fun with tons of parkour moves, fast-paced chases and blood-pumping combat. Sometimes I found myself just aimlessly running around and enjoying the random encounters and parkour. You don't need missions or a story to enjoy this game. Just traversing the beautiful city of Villedor is rewarding on its own. Techland definitely nailed the "design the level around character movement" philosophy perfectly, kudos to all the designers. This is undeniably a step up from the previous game. The soundtrack is a very pleasant surprise to me, the songs are not too varied but very fitting for the tone and it's just such a nice feeling to hear a song ramp up while freerunning or gliding over the streets. Voice acting can be rough at times but I believe the main characters are pretty good. Jonah Scott did a brilliant job with Aiden and it kind of sounds like Roger Craig's Crane, which is welcome. The visuals are lovely. The city is colourful but not comical, detailed but not cluttered. Though some parts feel like they've been copied and pasted between many places, I can look past them because it makes sense for player familiarity with the environment. It could be very confusing for the players if everything was unique and they had to look all around just to see how they could climb a building. The unique locations you go into have lots of thought put into them. In a home, the shelves are toppled over, pictures are askew, and clothes and personal belongings are strewn about. In a store, it has been looted, and the cash register is bashed open. It all looks so real and it makes the world feel like it's lived in. Animations are mostly smooth, there is some jank here and there but it's not immersion-breaking. It is very nice to look at characters while they are doing stuff, be it running, fighting or drinking at a bar. The rest of the review is me ranting about the story and the ending so here's another SPOILER warning. The story is...lacking. There is not much point in the story. It is confusing, and the ending is just terrible, disappointing, and not as clever as it tries to be. It feels like they tried to make a game where Choices Matter™ but did not want to deal with the consequences of those choices so when the player chooses something, it usually only changes the way characters say things but still proceeds in a pre-determined way. I deliberately tried to make choices that I felt the game didn't want me to make and it was unpleasant to see that my choices did not matter at all. Feels like Fallout 4, but supercharged, or rather, Fallout 4 on crack. I know, I know, completely different games, but it's the same feeling. It is a promise that was not delivered upon. Until I started the epilogue, I still had some hope for some good closure, but no. The epilogue kind of just lumps up everything thrown at you throughout the main storyline and rushes to end it in a way that is just very unsatisfying. Leaving me with still lots of questions, and very disappointed. There are many moving parts and they just do not work with each other. Throughout the game, you meet all sorts of characters. Anarchists, militarists, survivors, bandits, and all of them want something from you. The game tries to make you feel like your choices matter, but they really don't. The game just forces you down a path, and the only choice you get is which group of people you want to side with. But it doesn't matter who you side with, because the ending is the same. So why even bother with the choice? The game also clearly takes the side of Survivors, however, they are the arseholes from the very start of the game. Everyone you meet from Survivors either tries to kill you, scam you, or just be general nuisances. So why would the game want you to side with them? It doesn't make sense. Most of the likeable characters are either Peacekeepers or neutral. There aren't many people from Survivors that I actually gave a crap about. Aiden Caldwell, the protagonist of the game spends 15 years looking for his sister Mia and you spend dozens of hours with the game shoving that down your throat only for you to find her and not be able to save her?? Storywise, you should be able to save her (costing a lot in the process), but the game doesn't let you make that choice. For some reason, at the end of the game, Aiden has completely different motives and doesn't want to save her sister anymore. This could have worked, only if Aiden's character was developed in a way that makes it believable. But no, it is not. Towards the midpoint of the game, Aiden meets Lawan, a young female who he falls in love (or rather develops a relationship) with, the game shoves that down your throat as well. And again, the relationship is not developed in a way that makes it believable. Never once through this whole game, I felt any connection between Aiden and Lawan. There is no reason for Aiden to care about her, yet he does and vice versa. It is just not believable. Until the point where they started showing signs of love through their "relationship", they barely talked to each other. They didn't even know each other. It was just a few cutscenes in a few story missions, and suddenly they are in love? No, it doesn't work. So at the end of the epilogue, some absolutely insane things happen and you are given two choices. Either you can save the whole city or sacrifice Lawan. While you can "save" Mia if you let Hakon live, you can't actually save her. In the epilogue, she dies anyway. She is also revealed to not be Aiden's sister in a brief 30sec dialogue? It makes no sense. So the game basically tells you "Hey, you spent all this time looking for your sister, but actually she is not your sister. And also you can't save her, but you can save this other girl who you barely know and are in love with". It is a terrible choice, and I feel like the game didn't give me enough information to make a choice. And after Mia is "saved", she still dies within 2 hours. 15 years of looking for her, and she dies right after you find her. And Aiden just kind of... shrugs it off? It is terrible writing and a terrible story. I'm sorry, I know this review is long, but I just had to get this off my chest. I love the game, I really do, but the story just ruined all the immersion for me. I can't recommend this game to anyone who wants a good story. If you want a game that you can just open and start enjoying immediately, this is it. The gameplay, visuals, and soundtrack all make an amazing experience, but the story is just awful. It is very frustrating to see such amazing world-building with uninspired writing.