Hey Techland, are you absolutely sure Dying Light isn’t supposed to be the next installment in the Dead Island franchise? After watching the new 12-minute gameplay walkthrough, I quite honestly don’t see much of anything that distinguishes it from that other open-world zombie game. Sure, there’s the night/day cycle and the parkour stuff, but with zombies to kill and seemingly so many things to stop and explore, the sense of free-running momentum of true parkour appears to get a bit lost–though the ability to improvise movements and choose different, unrestricted paths through the world is pretty slick.
It remains unclear whether or not Dying Light will have any sort of RPG leveling mechanics, but so far the combat and weapon systems and the overall design aesthetic look just like Dead Island. Not that that’s a terrible thing, but I’m kind of hoping for more than that from a game that’s not supposed to be the next Dead Island. But hey, that’s all semantics, and there’s no point rushing to judgment too quickly here. Dying Light isn’t out until next year, the footage shown is pre-alpha (and still looks pretty damn impressive), and Techland has a lot still to explain. I’m not completely blown away, but I like what I see so far.
Matt Litten is a 28 year old from-the-womb gamer turned video game reviewer/blogger and current editor/owner/operator of VGBlogger.com. Matt got his first taste of gaming as a youngster on the NES and Atari, and the rest is history from there.
In 2004, three years removed from high school and still looking for a career direction in life, Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com, and after a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez Matt turned his attention to VGBlogger, and to this day is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary. 