Dying Light: The Beast turned me into a bloodthirsty animal
In real life, I'm not a violent man. I'd even go so far as to say that I'm a bit of a pacifist, though 2025 has really tested the limits of that day after day. It takes a special kind of game to really bring the animal out in me, leaving me to soak in some digital bloodshed with a smile. Dying Light: The Beast is very much that flavor of game.
At this year's Summer Game Fest, I got 45 minutes of hands-on time with Techland's latest zombie survival game. I've only really experienced the series from a distance until now, so I walked into my demo unsure if its gory combat would hook me. As soon as I beat down an entire room full of monsters with Kyle Crane's beastly new powers, I felt like I had found the safe outlet for my repressed rage that I've really needed all year.
Recommended Videos
Despite being more of a spinoff, Dying Light: The Beast isn't so different from Dying Light 2: Stay Human. It takes place in a zombie filled world full of shambling monsters whose flesh can be torn up with barbed wire baseball bats and crowbars. Kyle Crane, the hero of the first Dying Light game, returns here in a revenge story as he tracks down the Baron, a villain who performed some kind of horrible experiment on Crane. That kicks off a quest for blood that features all of Dying Light's signature features, from rooftop parkour to deadly dropkicks.
The one slight departure from Dying Light 2 is that The Beast leans more into survival horror territory this time. When the sun is out, I can easy get around sporadic patches of zombies who are easily felled by a few good bat bonks or fooled with a decoy grenade. The earliest part of my demo as me treating them like punching bags as I hack through their flesh, skin and blood flying everywhere. That changes when night falls and far more dangerous creatures fill up the streets. I need to go into stealth mode to survive, scrambling up abandoned train cars and hiding in thick forests to avoid getting chased down and beaten to death. Those are the rare moments where I feel powerless. Any other time? I'm the one in control.
Techland goes to great lengths here to make sure that every one of Crane's weapons just feels morbidly satisfying to use. When I get a bow midway through my demo, I take pleasure in lining up headshots that take out wandering guards with laser precision. Shortly after that, I drop into a dark basement and get to blow through corridors full of zombies with a tremendously powerful shotgun. Even my dropkick is a weapon of mass destruction, sending weak zombies flying. Everything just hits.
That idea gets taken to the next level here thanks to Kyle Crane's new trick. Due to the experiments inflicted upon him, Crane can now activate beast mode when building up enough power. When activated, it essentially turns him into an unstoppable killing machine for a brief moment. I first get to use it when I fix a fuse box in a basement and find myself trapped in a room with a dozen zombies. I unleash my inner animal, throwing out rapid punches without my stamina bar draining. Seconds later, the undead are back on the floor. It happens in an instant and I'm almost left panting when it's done. It's absolutely thrilling.
Everything comes together in the demo's final boss fight, as I need to take down a hulking flesh monster in a junkyard filled with abandoned cars. I unload every bullet I have into it while dodging away from its charging attacks at the last second. I get to use another lethal tool there: a flamethrower that chars its skin until it looks like a well-done steak. It gets desperate in its second phase, grabbing hold of a shambling zombie and tossing it at me. I dodge, get some final shots in, and eventually tear my foes head clean off. It feels like I've just watched a battle between lions in the jungle, and I'm the one left with blood in my jaws.
If bloodshed isn't your thing, there's a lot more to The Beast than its sheer brutality. I'm especially impressed by the environmental design here, a parkour playground that sends me running around densely detailed rooftops. One puzzle segment has me climbing my way up an abandoned water tower, pushing me to observe the intricate design to find loose pipes I can mantle up with the right timing. It all makes for a world full of pathways that feel like they exist naturally in the world, rather than heavily signposted platforming gauntlets.
I'm sure I'll appreciate that even more in the final game, but I mostly look forward to swinging that baseball bat again and watching it cave in a zombie's face. It's grotesque, but I can be grotesque when a game is this good at turning me into a depraved little monster.
Dying Light: The Beast launches on August 22 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
an hour ago
- Digital Trends
Lego Party's demo was so nice, I played it twice
It was the first day of Summer Game Fest's Play Days event, and I'd just wrapped up a round of Lego Party, a new multiplayer game announced just the day before. I wandered off to another demo appointment and then walked back through the room where others were playing it. As I was passing the kiosk again, a heard someone say my name. Two friends were sitting down for their own Lego Party appointment, so I walked over and said hi. They asked if I wanted to hop in with them. I was about to decline, but I stopped to think for a moment. You know what? Sure! Why not? That's not generally something I'd do during a crowded day of previews, but it speaks to how pleasant Lego Party is. While it largely just dresses Mario Party up in bricks, it's an endearing little multiplayer game that's both chaotic and casual enough to entertain friends looking to laugh over a few good minigames. Recommended Videos You can infer a lot about Lego Party from its title alone. It's a digital board game where players circle spaces and collect studs that are used to buy Golden Bricks. The player with the most Bricks at the end wins, but there are minigames to win and board events to work around on the road to victory. Very little about it changes the Mario Party formula, save for the fact that minigames happen at the start of rounds rather than the end. The standings of each game determine the turn order for the next round, which makes winning and losing a little more important. Otherwise, the changes are minimal, with analogues to star stealing, battle spaces, hidden blocks, and more. And that's totally fine. Mario Party works for a reason and it's surprising that so few have ever really nailed it quite as well. Lego Party really does approach the agony and the ecstasy of those games with its emphasis on standing-changing chaos. In my first go at the demo, I got my butt kicked by a CPU player who just so happened to rack up some late Bricks by stealing one from a player through a board event that involved an erupting volcano and a raw chicken. It was a hectic conclusion to a six round game that got everyone in my session invested in destroying the computer. Aside from that, there are two things that Lego Party gets right about the format. The first is its map design. I played one of its four maps, which featured a strong pirate theme. I had to work around several themed obstacles, like a chomping whale that would eat me if I landed on the right space and that pesky volcano. More clever is the way that the maps incorporate Legos. In one game, I landed on a construction space. I was given the choice to build part of the board when I got there, choosing between two different pirate ships that added different events to the map. That malleable quality makes it feel like players can build the play area each game, adding a solid Lego twist to Mario Party. And in case you're wondering, yes, every single piece of the game is built out of Legos. Even the smallest detail, like a treasure chest sitting off to the side of a space, is fully built from bricks. It's an incredibly impressive feat that makes Lego Party feel like a high-effort project for developer SMG Studio. Some of the minigames I played were highlights too, though the best ones leaned into the Lego aesthetic. In one, bricks start swirling around in front of all four players. As they do, we have to guess what they are building from four options ahead of us. The fastest correct guess gets the most point, so it becomes a tense battle of observation as players look for defining bricks that give away which model is the right answer. In another, all players need to protect fragile vases in their corner of a square field from a ball. A hectic game of soccer unfolds that ends with shattered vases left in a pile of bricks. Games like that play with the brick-by-brick nature of the world to great effect. Other minigames are a bit more basic, leading to some hits and misses. A simple game of air hockey or a jump rope contest over a spinning kraken feel like they could be in any Mario Party game. Original or not, they're still fun enough to get friends in the spirit of smack talking. One of my personal favorites dropped me and my opponents into a riff on Trials, where we had to keep our motorcycles balanced as we drove up and down hills. When I got tempted into playing Lego Party again, I said yes for a simple reason: I knew I'd get a good laugh playing another round with friends. My theory held true, and I had an even better time with it my second time around. I'm a little skeptical that four boards will be enough to keep it all fun enough in the long run, but I can see the party potential here already. Who doesn't love cursing their friends out over a jump rope minigame gone awry? Lego Party launches later this year for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Digital Trends
2 hours ago
- Digital Trends
Pokémon's Switch 2 upgrade is a massive evolution
When Nintendo revealed that select Switch games would be getting improved Switch 2 Editions, I couldn't help but notice one glaring omission: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Of all the major Nintendo franchises released on the Switch, that was the one I was begging to see get a massive performance boost on the Switch 2. None of the Pokémon games on Switch ran fantastically, but the ninth generation was seriously hindered by technical woes. I wanted to love the game, but an abysmal framerate, bland textures, and even crashes were enough to push me away from the game until it was in a more complete state. We never got a comprehensive Switch patch, and instead of a full Switch 2 Edition, Nintendo only promised Scarlet and Violet would receive 'enhanced visuals and smoother gameplay.' Needless to say, my hopes weren't exactly high before trying it out for myself. After starting a new adventure on the Switch 2, it feels like Pokémon has finally reached its true potential and has reinvigorated my waning excitement for Pokémon Legends: Z-A. Recommended Videos The experience it was always meant to be I could always see a great Pokémon game fighting to shine through under the technical mess. Even I, someone who isn't overly sensitive to frame rates or able to count pixels at a glance, wasn't able to look past all the issues plaguing that game. It wasn't just that the frame rate was bad, but also inconsistent. This frequently caused me to feel almost queasy playing — an experience I never get outside of some VR games. That, combined with the flat textures and extreme pop-in, resulted in a game I simply couldn't enjoy, no matter how much I wanted to. And I did want to. I could see the joy and whimsy of this world and the academic setting, but the technical issues just prevented me from reaching it. On the Switch 2, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's core design is finally able to shine. Why Nintendo was so vague about just how substantial the improvements would be is beyond me. That 'smoother gameplay' claim made me hesitate to even hope for a locked 30 FPS, yet here we are enjoying a buttery smooth 60 FPS experience. I'm relying on those with a more keen eye and the ability to measure frame rates to confirm that number, but it more than feels like 60 to me. Even in areas where the frame rate was notoriously poor, I felt little more than a minor hitch in the experience. That's a far cry from the base experience where I would be subjected to a slideshow. Visuals are another area I was pleasantly surprised by, though not to as big a degree. There's no getting around some of the textures here are still quite basic, but at least now I don't have to see the foliage spring into existence as I cross the map. Beyond the draw distance, the game can also populate the world with more Pokémon that I can spot from a greater distance away. Besides removing that eerie emptiness I sometimes felt wandering around, this also makes hunting Pokémon a much more engaging task. When taken as a whole, the world of Pokémon finally feels alive. There are several other small improvements worth mentioning, like reduced loading times and more responsive menus, but the frame rate, visuals, and general stability afforded by the Switch 2 feel like the way Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was envisioned to be played. If you had to put your Pokémon journey on hold due to the performance issues like I did, or even held off completely based on others' experience, this free Switch 2 update finally shows off the diamond hidden in the rough. If nothing else, it goes a long way towards calming my hesitation about Pokémon Legends: Z-A coming later this year — at least the Switch 2 version, anyway.
Digital Trends
4 hours ago
- Digital Trends
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds has one big advantage over Mario Kart World
At this point, I'm convinced that Mario and Sonic are destined to be forever at war. The last chapter of their friendly rivalry came in 2023 when Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Sonic Superstars launched within three days of one another. We're getting a repeat of that this summer, as the hedgehog will try to outrace Mario Kart World on September 25 with Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, his latest kart racing game. That may sound like a raw deal for the blue blur, but after playing a new slice of Crossworlds at Summer Game Fest, I actually think that the guy has one big advantage over Mario's latest game: customization. Let's take it back to the starting line. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is a new racing game that takes plenty of clear inspiration from Mario Kart. After days of playing World nonstop, I was able to pick up the controller and know exactly what every button would do without a tutorial. There's drifting, starting boosts, drafting, items that are Mario items but not, and more. As similar as that might sounds, the actual feel of driving in Crossworlds is entirely different from Mario Kart. It's all looser, with weightless cars flying through corners. It takes me some time to adjust, as it feels a bit unwieldy at first. That doesn't stop me from eventually mastering its multi-stage drifting and ring collecting hook. Recommended Videos In our last preview during its beta, we praised Crossworlds for its creative multidimensional hook. It's a feature where the track players race on seamlessly changes to another mid-race. That idea held up here, especially thanks to some excellent track design, but it's no longer the signature feature for me. Instead, I am all-in on the way Crossworlds lets players customize their playstyle — a feature that's sorely missing from Mario Kart World. In that game, players don't make a lot of decisions when starting a race. Characters don't have stats and there's a set list of pre-built cars to select, a departure from Mario Kart 8 with its full car customization. Sonic Crossworlds restores that layer of strategy to the genre in Mario Kart's absence. Each character has base stats, and cars can be tinkered with for players that want to finely tune their cars. I had just as much fun making a perfect car for Shadow, right down to the paint job, as I have exploring Mario Kart's open world. That idea goes even deeper, though. Players can create a load out of passive bonuses, which can entirely alter their play style. A few perks can be equipped at once, and that opens the door for a lot of synergy potential. In my first Grand Prix, I made a set that was entirely built around raising my speed as high as possible. I got much more creative in my second race. I decided to focus on collecting rings, trying to stay constantly maxed out. I experimented with badges that would reduce the amount of rings I lost when getting hit, one that raised my max ring count, and others that would steal rings from my opponents. I customized my car to fit that, going all in on power with Knuckles behind the wheel. That load out gave me an entirely different way to play, as races became about smashing into enemies as much as possible rather than trying to stay away from them. That feature is filling a void that Mario Kart's more streamlined approach leaves open. I welcome the extra strategic layer on top of what's still a fairly casual racing game. The driving may not be tuned to my tastes, and the items are truly just reskinned versions of Mario's tools, but it feels like I can build something here. There's plenty of unlockables to support that idea too, as the customization menus are full of items that I can buy with tickets. It's a racing game for those who want to spend just as much time in the garage as they do on the track. I think I might be the former. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds launches on September 25 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
