Reviews

October 2, 2025

Dying Light: The Beast Review

Dying Light, Dying Light: The Beast, Techland

To err is human, to forgive divine, wrote Alexander Pope. Arguably, one of the greatest proofs of humanity is our capacity to consider, comprehend, reason, and forgive. If someone has wronged us, err’d, or plain got it wrong, we can say “it’s ok” and try to move on. Forgiveness, however, is not something Kyle Crane is replete with. No, Kyle Crane wants revenge, bloody, glorious revenge.

Dying Light: The Beast is the story of Kyle Crane’s revenge, an all-consuming rage that drives the story in the new setting of this side-sequel to both previous Dying Light games. Is it worth jumping back into Techland’s zombie-slaying world? Emphatically, yes!

The Walking Dead

I’ve always been a fan of the Dying Light games. I love everything about the series’ ethos at the heart of the game. I’m also a big fan of The Walking Dead, and I’ve always maintained that the human stories and the struggle to survive in the zombie apocalypse are what make it compelling. You can’t just have endless zombie slaughter and fill 11+ seasons. The same goes for a game series like Dying Light. The zombies are core to the world and are driving forces for the plot, but they’re never-ending. You’ll never kill all the zombies and clear the area. That’s not how it works, or what it’s about (although it is admittedly very satisfying to go off on a swarm of them).

The plot of Dying Light: The Beast keeps that key ethos alive. Taking place around 14 years after the original game, Kyle Crane, the first game’s protagonist, has been captured and experimented on for nearly a decade and a half. Being immune to the virus turning people into zombies, the enemy of the piece, The Baron, wants to learn everything he can about Kyle Crane’s physiology for his own dastardly research.

It’s at the beginning we see Kyle, fairly broken and in a pretty dire place. We learn that The Baron has captured another man, and is experimenting on him, taking what they’ve learned from Kyle and creating the titular “Beast”.

Of course, something goes awry, and both you and The Beast manage to escape. You’re helped by Olivia, who gets you back on your feet after your escape. She also knows a lot about Kyle, being a forced scientist in the lab you’ve just escaped from.

Stay Human

You’ve got one objective: murder The Baron, taking revenge for everything he’s done to you.

I found the story interesting enough, it’s smartly done. Kyle’s revenge rampage would get tedious if that’s all he was chirping on about, and over the course of the campaign, you’ll need to forge alliances, meet new people, and work together to overcome your foes. I felt it was a clever way to remind Kyle of his humanity. He’s entirely still pissed off and wanting to pull off The Baron’s head, but you can see him soften and become more caring and empathetic throughout. Nothing’s ever as simple, and blind rage won’t help the situation.

I felt this even more so in the game’s side quests. They told really human stories. Of people trying to live, and the struggles they are going through. They’re pretty well done too, rarely just fetch quests, they usually were layered and gave you something to think about. There were two I found particularly heart-warming / touching, and it felt really genuine. I really appreciated those moments of humanity.

And there’s plenty to keep you busy. Random encounters appear as you explore, some requiring you to say someone in trouble, for example. There’s also a whole load of collectibles to find that build on the story and world in Dying Light: The Beast. I really enjoyed listening to the tape recordings, finding the murals, and seeking out the different case notes.

Bloody Hell

That being said, I did find some of the missions a bit onerous, having you trek across the map, to trek back was a touch annoying. You have the option of driving vehicles, of course, but I felt the game could have benefited from fast travel. Even if it was just to key locations, rather than everywhere, I get the appeal of the realism of surviving; of course, that’s just a personal preference.

Naturally, you can’t just take on The Baron, you’re not nearly strong enough. To build your strength, you’ll need to seek out Chimeras, extract their blood and inject it into yourself. This gives you a boost to your powers and gives your Beast Skill point to spend on new beast abilities when you’re in Beast mode.

I found it weird that The Beast, wasn’t in the story all that much, despite it being the name on the box. I’m fairly sure he was absent for maybe 50% of the main campaign. I often found myself questioning if there’s some existential questioning going on, where Kyle is all “The Beast” given the lengths he is going to seek his revenge.

Beast Mode

Beast mode was super fun! When your red bar fills up you’ll lose control and start swinging your fists, pulling arms off zombies and popping skull. It’s gloriously visceral and satisfying, especially as it flows really well mid-combat. As you progress you’ll unlock new abilities that you can employ which are also lots of fun, especially when surrounded by a lot of infected or taking on tougher beasty.

Later on you’ll be able to control it further so you can use when you want, not when Kyle loses control. Both of these I found a touch annoying, I was often unleashing the beast when I’d nearly killed everything, when I couldn’t control it. Likewise, because you click both thumb sticks (Xbox) to activate beast, I kept doing so accidentally when I could control it. The sprint and ‘survivor sense’ are both activated by clicking the Left and Right sticks respectively. Occasionally, I kept activating beast mode as I was sprinting and activating survivor sense to search for resources!

Thankfully, activating beast mode draws Virals towards you, so you’ve always got something to kill.

Zombie, Zombie, Zombie-ie-ie-ie

Speaking of Virals, if you’ve played a Dying Light game before, you’ll be familiar with the enemy types. In fact, they’re pretty much the same throughout.

You’ve got the standard infected, the frantic virals and the beastly and horrifying Volatiles. Infected get all up in your shit all the time and are incredibly annoying. They’re overly grabby and I found myself getting incredibly frustrated with them on the regular. Thankfully, their over eagerness is being pruned with an upcoming patch, but for now, annoying!

I really like the Virals. Sure, they’re annoying as hell because they’re agile, can climb, and are nippy as hell. But, they’re often summoned by a gunshot or an explosion. They feel like a key part of the Dying Light ecosystem. Keep quiet and you’ll encounter fewer of them.

For the Night is Dark, and Full of Terrors

Volatiles, are just horrendous, but they’re meant to be. One of Dying Light’s series USP is the day and night cycle. When night draws in in the game, the volatiles emerge and prowl the streets. If they spot you, a chase will ensue and you’ve got to get to safety, or you’re pretty much dead. They are tough!

It is possible to kill them, but you’ll have a job on your hands, even using Beast mode, because if they’re chasing you, they’ve alerted other Volatiles, and boy do they hit hard.

The night is genuinely terrifying. Volatiles are everywhere, and you can see bugger all. You could use your torch of course, but you run the risk of alerting zombies or Volatiles to your locations. You get double XP at night but honestly, I usually sought a safe zone and waited until morning. Not being new to Dying Light, I was surprised at how much I struggled with the night cycle this time, it felt really tough. But, it was genuinely exciting / nerve wracking to be sneaking around, trying not to be spotted.

I also found the game’s parkour frustrating, often missing jumps, ledgers or just getting stuck trying to scale something. In the heat of a chase at night, I usually died , the panic / parkour issues usually resulted in death. UV lights and traps and safe zones are scattered across the map but need to be powered up and secured before they’re usable.

These traps help you in chases as you can catch pursuing Volatiles to give yourself a chance to escape.

Let’s Me Be Blunt, and Sharp, and Ranged

Dying Light: The Beast, like all Dying Lights requires you to scavenge, craft and seek out resources and weapons to survive.

The combat is as crunchy and satisfying as the other Dying Light games. Smacking zombies with your blunt weapons illicits some satisfying crunches, while using a blades weapons can cleave heads, shoulders, knees and toes (maybe not that those) from the torsos. There’s plenty of elemental blue prints too, so you’ll be soon electrocuting and setting things on fire!

I normally hate weapon durability, survival mechanics and crafting but it seems like a really system in this series. You’ve no storage limit for the craftable items and the weapon are fairly numerous throughout. And the degradation of your weapons isn’t too severe, and you can repair a number of times using your scavenges resources. It pays to explore the map, the houses and hidden Dark Zones for upgrade materials.

You use these to upgrade the various weapon and gadget blueprints that can be found. Picking up these allows you to make more weapons such as grenades, mines, crossbow bolts or med packs.

You’ve also got your ranged weapons, bows, pistols, shotguns, rifles and submachine guns. Ammo is pretty scarce, so you’re best saving for dire moments or, more likely, dealing with human enemies. I think they’ve all trained with Neo because the way they can dodge melee attacks is nothing short of impressive. Nippy bastards.

Hot Diggity Dog, This Place is Magnificent

In terms of performance, Dying Light: The Beast was excellent, for the most part.

The game itself handled a lot of things happening really well, and I didn’t encounter any frame rate drop. You need a zombie game to handle lots of zombies! And it does, really well. The shambling monstrosities are gory and detailed, and although they are familiar character models from previous games, have had a new lick of paint. Looking all the better for it. Likewise, the game itself looks amazing too, the European Alps setting is fantastic, and having the mountain range as the backdrop is pretty breathtaking at times.

Interiors are claustrophobic and atmospheric, and there are some particular missions towards the end of the game that were both entirely compelling and completely “on the edge of your seat” moments.

That’s Going to Bug Me

I felt the music and sound were great, again for the most part. It was atmospheric and slightly unhinged in places, keeping you on edge whilst, in some instances, remaining eerily calm. Occasionally, the music didn’t line up with what was going on. I’d loaded into the game at one point in a safe zone and a fairly intense guitar heavy track was playing, I’d just woken up! I had to quit out and reload to get it to reconsider the tone.

Similarly, the only real bug I encountered was during certain missions when you were required to kill all the human or zombie enemies in an area. On several occasions, the markers wouldn’t update despite me killing everything, they’d still say the objective needed to be competed. Quitting the game and restarting usually resolved it, but it was a fairly regular and annoying issue.

A Beast?

Dying Light: The Beast is a gritty, emotionally charged game that builds on the series’ strengths while introducing new, and fun layers of gameplay. A few mechanical hiccups and pacing issues hold it back from greatness but it’s still a beast worth taming. A thoroughly gruesome and fun zombie survival experience.