Dying Light 2 was one of last year’s insatiable AAA time sinks, designed to outlast the idea of a refund or trade-in. It dragged dozens, if not hundreds, of hours from millions of players. And that time, easily slid down the drain, gleefully wasted, and easily forgotten, has resurfaced in Spotify Wrapped-style presentations such as Steam as if Fatberg were plugging the sewers. Thank you Gabe. Really, you shouldn’t have.
After all, I personally spent 1.5 weeks working on Techland’s ambitious zombie sequel. Witnessing such a stiff figure on a cold New Year’s evening tends to cause a little regret and remorse. What was your motivation? If you’ve settled on 6/10 with the review editors of Edge magazine, why are you back?
I can’t speak for other Dying Light 2 players who probably wanted escape or just value for money. But I know I was chasing something very specific. The highs brought years ago are taut but free-form gauntlets made up of rooftop vents, fire escapes, and sudden rifts that make the most of first-person parkour.
In Dying Light 2, like Mirror’s Edge, navigation is mostly a high-wire act that encourages you to think before you jump. But in Timed Challenge mode, that cautious tread is balanced against a ticking clock.The toughest and most satisfying parkour trial in Dying Light 2 has the potential to reach top scores. In the case, we were forced to abandon our thoughtful approach in pursuit of pure speed. Recent running memories will appreciate the blurred terrain when flying.
However, these outstanding runs had to be drawn from the open-world morass of quasi-medieval Vildor. Dying Light 2’s parkour challenges are quite numerous, but he’s organically discovered piece by piece throughout the city map, and much of it is behind the campaign progression. Still, Techland’s Skills Many can’t be handled until you’ve spent hours on his tree.
Wall running, sliding under things, and emergency forward rolls to avoid pancakes after a long fall – these are all central to the first-person parkour moveset that can be traced back to Mirror’s Edge. It’s a component. Without them, you’ll have a hard time maintaining any significant momentum. Forget about adding that grappling hook to your toolbelt until you’re deep into hit-and-miss stories.
white hot
If the hazy and flickering hopes of proper parkour sustained me through Dying Light 2, the summer neon white release was a dizzying light bulb. It’s a game that’s all set and meant to be repeated in leaderboard battles with friends. I was driven by an impressive performance from a former colleague I hadn’t seen in years. He probably doesn’t know I was using his score as a high water mark. I hope you are well.
At first glance, you wouldn’t think Neon White has enough Mirror’s Edge. The ghoulish, abstracted levels built from massive, textureless towers and viaducts are more reminiscent of his 90s shooter games than his GoPro footage of real freerunners. And parkour itself is closer to the Minecraft community effort than DICE’s model. Press ‘w’ to move forward at a set speed and not gain momentum unless temporarily boosted by a bomb or flowing water. Pressing the spacebar will create a floating arc, but you won’t see any bobbing limbs in your peripheral vision. Only white streaks are visible, indicating that they are moving at high speed. There is no stamina bar, and there is no way to interact with the ledges or walls of the passageway other than landing or dodging.
All of this might strike you as a throwback to the parkour genre. Concentrated. Also, that level is not blank. Clean, readable, and suitable for plotting laser guide routes. Their tidyness leaves room for tactical layers provided by hand of cards, each of which can be used in one of two ways to fire projectiles at enemies or interrupt parkour in a specific way The pistol is also a double jump. Rifles can be horizontal dashes. Uzi? A pound on the ground that drops you like a swooping elevator. Decide exactly how and when to play each card, consuming them with split-second precision by the time you complete the map.
Map perfection is achievable not only by streamers and YouTubers who specialize in such things, but also by average players thanks to Neon White’s small range and instant reset. This is a form of accelerated learning familiar from micro-challenge platformers like Celeste and Super Meat Boy. Only seconds after the last wrong turn, you can fix imperfections, try out routes and repeat runs at breakneck pace. The curve from first contact to mastery can be drawn in just a few minutes, but this is no trick. This is skill-based problem-solving you can brag about.
So it’s even more frustrating to remember Dying Light 2 every time it returns to the open world instead of retrying the obstacle course in your head. It does exploration, scavenge, stealth, survival horror, first-person melee, and branching narrative as well. Because diversity of activity is the official core tenet of the open world. But when I look back on this year, I’m grateful to Neon White for letting me skip the good part. Even if it only emphasized the time it washed out the U-bend.
