Dying Light 2

Techlands sequel is more social sandbox than zombie killer

Don’t think of Dying Light 2 as a zombie game, or a survival game, or even an open-world game in the usual sense. Think of it instead as a playable map editor, an exercise in sculpting the human and physical geography of a pestilent European metropolis – not with a cursor, but with a flying kick. Set a few years after its predecessor’s undead apocalypse, the game is built once again around the three principles of “natural movement” (Mirror’s Edge without the linearity), first-person melee (Mirror’s Edge with squelchier combo finishers) and a dayand-night cycle that alters the threat level. But it places a much greater emphasis on story, and that story is not so much told as embodied in the changing terrain.

It’s there in the fact that the streets in one district are no longer safe to wander, but there are now ziplines between crumbling facades to keep you out of harm’s way. It’s there in the queues of thankful refugees by water pumps, or the thickening of undead presence in certain alleyways, or the springing up of windmills on the horizon. All of these alterations, little and large, are the result of player interactions with the city’s people and factions, as Tymon Smektala, lead designer, explains; they reflect a commitment to telling a story that is just as malleable and unpredictable as the average zombie encounter.