When setting out on my fourth journey of leaping across rooftops while slicing zombies in twain via the Dying Light series, I’d wondered if I’d feel any less joy from this violent survival horror-parkour this time. But after another 40+ hours of tucking and rolling I’m pleasantly surprised to say it’s still loads of fun, despite the basics not having changed much at all since 2022’s Dying Light 2: Stay Human. This trip through undead Eurasian cities and countrysides does up the ante somewhat by having you play as a human infused with a monster’s DNA, giving you the ability to rip people’s heads off with your bare hands. That’s as satisfying as it is unsettling, and it’s still absolutely horrifying to get caught out at night and get swarmed by Volatiles you’ve no hope of defeating. The only major disappointment is that The Beast doesn’t add a whole lot aside from its hulking out mechanics, and after a decade of games with few innovations, that hasn’t left room for a ton of surprises. Still, there’s something to be said for a reliably entertaining series, and I happily dug my fingernails through every side quest and climbing puzzle I could find.
This sequel continues the story of the first game’s protagonist, Kyle Crane, who through a series of quite gruesome events he’s been transformed into a half-man, half-beast monstrosity capable of leaping 50 feet in the air and screaming so loud it makes the undead take psychic damage… so, still very weird. There’s not much more than that to the paper-thin plot, which has you squaring off against the world’s most generic Bond villain and mad scientist on a revenge quest that goes down exactly like you think it does, but it’s at least a good enough excuse to hunt down bosses and engage with the side quests that are usually better written and sometimes downright silly. Plus, even though the story is about as minimum effort as it gets, the characters you meet and befriend along the way are at least memorable enough that I didn’t feel like skipping the lengthy conversations where you get to know them.
As you sprint toward your final confrontation (which took my completionist self about 40 hours, but could pretty easily be done in under 20), you power yourself up by hunting dangerous, genetically modified zombies with super powers called Chimeras and injecting yourself with their blood. This is where the main new mechanics of The Beast comes into play, like the ability to shoulder-charge through a crowd of zombies without breaking a sweat and really silly ones like one where you can change directions in mid air by yanking on your grapple hook with obscene force. Turning yourself into a Hulk-like abomination in the pursuit of revenge makes for a neat twist to an already awesome framework, and being able to throw down your machete and punch 20 zombies to death in the span of 10 seconds is quite satisfying.
That said, even this is a fairly small tweak to the established Dying Light blueprint, as you only get to go full werewolf every so often after you’ve charged up your rage meter from taking and dealing damage. For the rest of the time you’re still swinging lead pipes and running away from Volatiles per usual, so if you’ve played a Dying Light game before the vast majority of your playtime will feel quite familiar. That’s by no means a bad thing since it’s a reminder of some good times, but it does seem like a bit of a run/jump/slide down memory lane.
One other thing that makes The Beast distinct from its predecessors is the boss fights against souped-up infected that unlock your new abilities. The first time you come across each of these encounters it introduces a new type of baddie that then starts showing up in the wild, like a fast-moving skeletal zombie that leaps through the air, dances on top of lesser undead, and tackles you with sharp claws in the blink of an eye; or another where a muscular, brutish ghoul gains the ability to turn invisible, leaving you frantically looking over your shoulder and listening for growls in the dark. They’re cool the first time, but by the end of the campaign it feels a bit like they ran out of steam because they start rolling out variations of the same bosses you fought prior, like a muscular, brutish zombie whose only differentiated by his gas mask and weakness to poison. Still, they’re always at least entertaining highlights along the way – I mean, who doesn’t love a boss fight?
The open-world valley of Castor Woods is the new setting you’ll spend all your time in while seeking your revenge, and it combines time-worn elements we’ve seen in other Dying Light games into a cozy little package. It’s got spacious rural areas reminiscent of the original’s The Following expansion, as well as a city area with plenty of stone structures to scramble up. Castor Woods is fairly small compared to the sprawling maps of Dying Light and its first sequel, and you can definitely see the roots of The Beast being originally conceived as an expansion to Dying Light 2 when you run into the mountains that box you into a circular area that can be crossed by car in a couple minutes, but that’s not such a bad thing since they make good use of the space they’ve got without large expanses of emptiness padding it out.
It also includes what any good Dying Light game needs: When in the major urban area I was reminded of the virtues of sticking to the rooftops and leaping from place to place to avoid the hordes below, and while stepping out into the woods and swamps that make up the majority of the map I tried my best to make use of cars to bash my way to my destination and avoid getting caught out in the open. Like a lot of The Beast, everything about Castor Woods is perfectly acceptable while also not doing a whole lot to stand out, but I still made plenty of new memories while leaving a terrifying path of destruction in my wake.
Finally, I do have to hand it to Techland for making The Beast the most technically sound Dying Light game yet – I was able to get through without major or consistent bugs along the way. I played on my high-end PC, so likely got just about the best experience one could hope for, but it’s notable that aside from one crash and a bit of pop-in here and there, it was a pretty smooth ride throughout – and that’s with me having mostly played before the day-one patch, too. There were a few annoying moments where I got stuck in a vent due to some buggy geometry and couldn’t progress through the area until I’d jiggled my character around for a couple of minutes, and a few times where my character got stuck in the environment at the worst possible time and jeopardized my mission, but these were rare enough situations that they didn’t make me want to hulk out and throw things at the screen.
