Lately whenever we read that there is going to be a Redux, HD or EE version of a game, we tend to feel a mild fever, followed by a rash around the elbow of the left arm, and symptoms of bristling hair, because that usually means you’ll need to spare a few dozen Euros again to enjoy… the same game. And when something like this is announced for a game that only came out last year… splendid! But, in Polish developers’ genes must be some trace of kindness making them give EE versions of their games as a free update to their players, and in this case even the new DLC “The Following” was given to the owners of the “Seasonal Pass” even if it wasn’t announced as a part of it. A gesture worthy of praise and respect.
Dying Light EE brings a few novelties, a completely new skill tree, new weapons, new opponents, more polished graphics (although the original game is beautiful in itself) and the already mentioned, “The Following”, as a highlight of this pack.
“The Following” takes place right after the events from the base game. That is, Kyle Crane and the crew hear from a local trader/smuggler that there’s a small village near Harran in which people, under the protection of a mysterious cult called Children of the Sun, successfully resist the zombie plague – moreover, they seem to be immune to the disease and don’t turn into the undead. Since the situation in Harran is extremely bad, worsened by the shortage of antizin, our hero has no other choice but to pack up and head out on a journey to see if the rumors are true.
It’s a bold decision to have parkour and free run take a back seat and offer an alternative gameplay, which turned out to be a very profitable risk, because already in the first mission you acquire your new best friend/companion/weapon, its magnificence – the buggy! Buggy used as transportation is definitely the best thing in the game, the driving is done perfectly, the feel behind the wheel is great, and even if it seems simple it’s not easy at all, because the roads are often blocked by a variety of obstacles, all kinds and sizes of zombies, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you’ve learned the roads it becomes very fun and its quite possible to lose hours just driving around. We should also mention that the buggy is upgradeable. You can change literally everything – tires, engine, transmission, brakes, add weapons, strengthen the construction, but all of that can also get damaged and broken, so you need to take good care of your pet. When we add gasoline to all of that, which is also spent and is recommended that you have some in reserve, everything gets a whole new dimension. It doesn’t feel nice at all if your engine breaks, or you run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere in the dark, while hordes of zombies are around you and the nearest safe house is a few kilometers away.
The map is huge, maybe even bigger than in the base game, with a lot of interesting optional content. Besides plenty of side missions, there are races you can drive alone or race with your friends (there is a co-op mode just like in the base game), and the game gives you additional challenges while driving for even more fun. The locations in “The Following” aren’t monotone: there are green meadows, fields, hills, mountains, and the road will take you along beaches, through various caves, there is even swimming and diving in some missions, and abandoned industry facilities as well as buildings, just to keep your parkour skills from getting rusty.
Maybe the greatest deficiency in the game is its slow beginning because, upon arriving Kyle must prove himself and help out the locals in order for them to accept him into the cult and reveal their secrets. At that moment the game literally forces you to do side missions, because the main ones are locked until a certain level of loyalty is reached, which is a bad design decision for many reasons. It’s as clear as day why this was done – most of the players wouldn’t pay enough attention to them, some of these side activities wouldn’t even be looked at, but if you’re going to make an “open world”, imagined as a huge theme park or a playground that offers the players a freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, explore or just walk around, let it really be so, and not “Ok, but only if it coincides with developers’ wishes”. Oh the irony! If we accentuate that the side missions are very well done and aren’t at all boring, this decision seems even more unnecessary.
The storyline of the game is better than the one in the base game, it’s not anything epochal or never seen before, but it’s very well thought out and made, and it really shows, right after the intro when the game picks up the pace and shines in all its glory. It’s all completed with a memorable ending, which rounds up Dying Light in a good way.
The gameplay didn’t have any major changes besides the introduction of the buggy. Points are doubled at night and you can progress faster, but it’s also much more dangerous, of course there is again 1001 ways to mutilate the undead (and just like in the base game, there tends to be too many of them) with various imaginative weapons. The game isn’t particularly hard in normal mode, so hard difficulty is a good challenge for beginners and more experienced players as well, and for the brave there’s always the nightmare difficulty implemented in the EE version. There is more than enough content and while you can complete the main storyline in about 10 hours, completing the game would take around 20-30 hours of gameplay. An extraordinary number for a DLC.
In the end, The Following has fully earned the title of an expansion, considering the volume of content, quality and effort put into it. You can say it represents a road sign pointing the right direction for other developers, regarding how additional content should look like, so it’s, to some extent, a shame that “The Following” isn’t a standalone game, since it has all necessary quality.
Author: Dejan Stojilović
Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition
Pros:
- The buggy
- Story
- Beautiful graphics
Cons:
- Slow start
- Side missions are a requirement for further progress
