There is a moment in Dying Light: The Beast where you climb to the top of a ruined hotel tower in the middle of Castor Woods. The sun is setting, the clouds are bleeding gold across the horizon, and the wind carries the distant sound of infected roaming below. You catch your breath, glance across the vast sprawl of rooftops and woodland, and then the score hits. It reminded me of the fantastic score in 28 Days Later and how it really helped elevate the loneliness. That’s when I knew that this was going to be something truly special.
The most significant point of the whole game here is the return of Kyle Crane. After more than a decade in limbo, written off as gone or forgotten, his sudden reappearance is not just fan service. It’s the foundation of the whole game. This isn’t the same Crane you remember from Harran. He is back, but after years of experimentation, he is angry and looking to taste sweet revenge.
His anger isn’t just some back story to place him in the game; it’s the main driving force of the game, and his battle with The Baron is an intense one. The Baron, Dying Light: The Beast’s new bad guy, is cold, calculating, and deeply unsettling, and for once in this series, the villain feels as memorable as the monsters that stalk the streets.
That balance of story and play is crucial because Dying Light has always lived or died on how it feels under your thumbs. Dying Light: The Beast takes that lesson to heart. Movement and combat here are tuned back toward the desperation of the original rather than the overstuffed, overtuned feel of Stay Human. Every rooftop sprint feels dangerous again. Every jump carries the risk of a misstep.
Traversal has weight, the kind that makes your heart lurch when you catch a ledge at the last second. There is a skilled strategy to running, vaulting, climbing, and sliding through Castor Woods that gives back that old edge of survival. You are not coasting across this world. You are scraping by, testing your own momentum against a landscape designed to kill you.
Combat has been sharpened to match. The basic infected can overwhelm if you let your guard down, but it’s the new special types that make fights really stand out. The pouncer, in particular, is a terrifying addition. With its long claws and almost animalistic grace, it stalks you in a way that forces awareness.
Even in the middle of a swarm, you can’t lose track of it, because the moment you forget it is the moment it leaps, pinning you to the ground and ripping into you unless you time a dodge perfectly. Learning those tells, reacting at the right instant, and making space in chaotic battles is what makes Dying Light: The Beast’s combat stand out. It is fast, heavy, and cruel, but never cheap.
A huge part of why these fights feel so satisfying comes down to the weapons themselves. Techland has managed to make each swing, strike, and shot feel weighty and distinct. The bigger two-handed weapons are monsters in their own right. When you heft a sledgehammer or a heavy axe, you can feel the momentum behind every blow. They hit hard, they stagger enemies, and when they land, they land with an impact that rattles through the controller. Smaller one-handed weapons, on the other hand, are built for speed.
They let you dart in, slash or stab, and get back out before the horde collapses on you. Neither approach is inherently better, and swapping between them depending on the situation makes combat dynamic in a way that never gets old. Even the firearms, which have historically been the weakest part of Dying Light, feel smoother and more responsive this time around. They are not the focus, but they finally feel like a real option instead of an awkward fallback.
All of this is topped off by the new gore system, which pushes the combat into something far more visceral than before. It borders on too much at times, but that almost works in its favour. Landing a power hit to the jaw with a heavy weapon can literally shatter it, leaving it dangling grotesquely as the infected keeps lurching forward.
A slash across the stomach can spill guts onto the floor in gruesome detail. Limbs can be cleaved, skulls caved in, torsos split open. It is grotesque, yes, but it also makes every strike matter in a tangible, unforgettable way. The violence is not just shock value. It heightens the sense of danger, the reality of what you are doing, and how fragile both you and your enemies can be in this world.
Layered into the skills and levelling up systems are The Beast Skills, a direct consequence of Crane’s lost years of experimentation. These powers could have easily derailed the game if they were handled like a gimmick, but Techland has found a middle ground. They are potent and satisfying to use, but never so constant that they trivialize encounters. They feel earned.
“The Baron, Dying Light: The Beast’s new bad guy, is cold, calculating, and deeply unsettling…”
When you unleash one to stagger a Chimera or tear through a squad of human enemies, it feels like you are drawing on something volatile and dangerous. These abilities give Crane an edge, but they also remind you of what was done to him, of how much of his humanity was stripped away in the name of survival. They deepen the story as much as they empower the player.
The world itself is extraordinary. Castor Woods is not just large, it is alive. The sheer scale is intimidating, but it is the density of its details that makes it sing. There are secrets tucked into every abandoned cabin, caves that hide horrors or treasures, and remnants of the people who lived and died here. Unlike many open worlds that feel stretched for size, Dying Light: The Beast’s map rewards exploration at every turn.
I spent hours ignoring main missions just to see what I could uncover by climbing a half-collapsed church or sneaking through a flooded valley. That sense of discovery is what keeps the world from ever feeling empty, and it makes the parkour traversal endlessly rewarding.
“Dying Light: The Beast’s map rewards exploration at every turn.”
What really amplifies all of this is the atmosphere. The franchise has always thrived on the contrast between day and night, and Dying Light: The Beast might have the best use of that rhythm yet. During daylight, Castor Woods is harsh but manageable. You feel like you can take your time, plan routes, and hunt for supplies. When night falls, everything changes.
The infected are more aggressive, the darkness feels oppressive, especially how the series staple Volatiles act and how aggressive they are this time around; the game really pushed home that sometimes your best option is to run rather than fight. That tension between knowing when to stick it out and survival is the series at its best, and Dying Light: The Beast leans into it without mercy. I had nights where I felt unstoppable, and nights where I barely stumbled into safe zones with a sliver of health. Both are exhilarating.
The sound design cannot be praised enough. The score is immaculate, threading itself into both action and quiet moments in ways that elevate the entire game. The closest comparison is still that iconic 28 Days Later sense of dread, and there were countless times where I felt chills while simply overlooking the city as the music built around me. The smaller touches matter too. The ragged breath of Crane as he sprints, the guttural roars of infected echoing through the woods at night, all of it builds a space that refuses to let you feel comfortable. It reminds you that you are always prey, even when you are fighting like a predator.
It is not flawless. Some missions drag more than they should. A handful of side quests feel padded, asking you to fetch or repeat tasks without adding much to the world. Human enemies are inconsistent, sometimes smart and threatening, sometimes oddly passive. I also noticed a few technical hiccups, mostly frame dips in denser areas or texture pop-ins when sprinting too quickly across rooftops. None of these issues ruins the game. They are the kinds of rough edges you notice most when everything else is working so well.
What Dying Light: The Beast gets so right is remembering what made this series matter in the first place. The first game was about movement, fear, and survival. The second tried to broaden the scope, sometimes to its own detriment. Dying Light: The Beast finds a middle ground by returning to that original DNA while layering in just enough new ideas to feel fresh. Kyle Crane’s return gives the story weight. The Baron gives it menace. The Beast Skills give combat new teeth. The world gives you endless reasons to explore, to risk, to survive. The score ties it all together with a haunting beauty that lingers long after you stop playing.
I found myself thinking about Dying Light: The Beast even when I wasn’t playing. Remembering a fight I barely survived, wondering what secrets I missed in that ransacked attic, or if I could plan out a nighttime run. That kind of outside-of-the-game thinking isn’t very common, and it is what makes The Beast feel like the true successor to the original. It has its flaws, but they pale in comparison to how much it gets right. It isn’t very common, and it is what makes The Beast feel like the true successor to the original. It has its flaws, but they pale in comparison to how much it gets right.
