Dying Light – everything you need to know

Dying Light is a survival-horror zombie spectacular set to be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on 30 January 2015.

The game merges the zombie-slaying mechanics of Dead Island and the parkour system from Mirror’s Edge to give you one fast-paced undead smasher and shooter.

The parkour system includes the ability to run across rooftops, scale trees, and even grapple from the ground up to the top of a building. This makes it easy to get away from a horde of Infected who threaten your brain matter.

The Basics

Day and Night

Dying Light’s Infected (the guys who want to kill you) change as the game’s day/night cycle progresses. During the day you might be brave enough to approach them, but at night they become faster, stronger, and deadlier creatures. Bear this in mind.

Skill Tree

You will level up during Dying Light, increasing your skills over three skill trees: Survivor, Agility, and Power. You level up your character by performing certain actions, and these actions result in new skill points which can be spent.

Survivor

You obtain survivor skill points by completing side-quests and helping random survivors. The survivor skill tree has a wide range of skills to purchase, including bartering with shop owners for a discount, crafting weapons, and increasing backpack capacity.

Agility

The agility skill tree increases over time while you perform certain movements. The agility skill tree contains new movement skills like slide and vault, as well as offensive skills like dropkick and the ability to escape an infected grasp easier.

Power

Power is all about, well, power. Skill points are unlocked for the power tree by killing Infected. The power skill tree helps increase your health, weapon damage, and unlocks new gruesome ways to kill Infected.

Districts

Dying Light lets you explore the massive city of Harran. If compared to Dead Island, one district in Harran is the size of the entire Dead Island map.

The game will feature multiple districts, each with its own look and feel. As you advance through the game you will require certain skills to fully traverse each district. Each district in Dying Light will have also a safe house, which you must secure from the Infected before you can rest and store items in it.

Weapons

There will be multiple ways to kill a zombie in Dying Light. You can stick to melee weapons and level them up, build new weapons, or combine items to make the perfect zombie smasher. You can also choose from an arsenal of guns, keeping in mind that this is a survival-horror so ammo is scarce.

Weapons and guns will have their own rarity scale, with a rare crowbar, for example, causing more damage than a common one. The less common weapons also have a higher durability.

The Infected

There is a wide range of Infected that you will come across in Harran. Certain Infected will be tougher than others, while some of them can actually be used as a weapon to kill the other Infected.

For example: a zombie wearing a hazmat suit has a gas can attached to his back – shoot it for an instant explosion which will kill his undead comrades.

As mentioned, at night the Infected become more dangerous, and are able to run, jump, and climb objects. Here are the different foes you will encounter.

The Demolisher

The Demolisher is a very large Infected similar to the Tank from Dead Island. The Demolisher will charge at you, knocking you over and dealing damage. He can also pick up cars and throw them at you.

The Miner

The Miner is a brute. He carries around a heavy hammer that deals massive damage to you. The Miner’s attacks are slow but deadly.

The Toad

The Toad spits green acid from his mouth, which deals damage and blinds the player. The Toad is agile and can jump and run across rooftops.

The Exploders

Dying Light will have an Infected who will charge at you and explode, leaving behind a black residue on your screen. The Exploders will deal damage when they explode, but this can be avoided by either shooting them from a distance or running away as they are about to pop.

The Volatile

The most dangerous of all the Infected are the Volatile. They only appear at night and hunt in packs – also, they are faster than you.