Techland Reveal Dying Light Footage

Techland have a fairly patchy history with their games, with their very up and down Call of Juarez series and Dead Island, whilst successful, a rather flawed experience, even at the best of time. Dying Light takes that game’s open world Zombie setting and runs with it. Literally.

Courtesy of IGN, we get to see around 12 minutes of in-game action, which certainly reveals a lot of things about the game, and shows that Techland are being no less ambitious with their latest franchise.

It looks like a cross between Mirror’s Edge and Dead Island, with free running married to a world filled with more zombies than you can possibly take out on your own, pushing you to stay on the move and not get bogged down in combat. However, there is the return of weapon customisation, as demonstrated by the electrified knife shown a few minutes in, and we naturally have mutated forms of infected to fight or run away from.

Interacting with other humans will be key to the story, with a fellow Brit – Jade – there for you over the walkie-talkie, a side mission giving you the choice of investigating a scream emanating from a nearby house, and getting beaten to your first objective by a rival group as a consequence. The narration on the video reveals that going out of your way for these minor side missions will have a knock on effect, so you’ll have to make these choices as you go along.

Then, when the sun falls below the horizon, things get very different…

Dying Light is set for a 2014 release on PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC.

Source: IGN.

9 Comments

  1. I don’t want to watch too much of that as it can spoil it, but certainly one to watch. Looks very much like Dead Island but the free-running might add a really nice dimension, making for better exploring since you can climb etc. And my God how such games benefit from having no HUD, it makes it so much more immersive. I think a “running away” approach for this sort of game is far better than encouraging combat – I mean, would you really try and fight all the time if you were in that situation? That’s what made the original Resident Evils so good, you only had enough ammo to fight a few choice enemies, and it was far more worrying when trying not to get caught.

    The cluttered and detailed environments also look really nice.

    • Watched it all just now. That was bloody superb. It exceeded what I thought the scope of the game was initially. Also, graphically, that was so very strong. Wow.

      The best bit? How a survivor-running-action game turned into shit-the-pants scary stealth as daylight ebbed away.

      • I may have to check out the night section, I just don’t want to spoil too much in case I buy it.

        As you say, graphically it looks superb!

  2. Definitely has a “Mirror’s Edge meets Dead Island” vibe to it. Given my history with the latter I’m not pinning my hopes on Dying Light but this is pre-alpha, mind.

  3. Looking really good to me. The detail and graphics are lovely and I love the idea behind the game. Same goes for Dead Island. Sure, it was technically away from the bullseye but it still hit the mark with fun and co-op tomfoolery.

  4. That looks nice and cheery.

  5. Awesome. Whenever that’s out, i’ll be getting it.

    • Hopefully it’ll allow for co-op play like dead island too (as that’s where the fun is).

  6. This looks amazing, loved how the gameplay changes when it becomes dusk.

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