Dying Light The Beast Review
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Title: Dying Light: The Beast
Release: September 18, 2025
Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Techland
Genre: FPS Parkour Zombies
ESRB: M
Reviewed on: PC
Time Played: 20 Hours
The undead never truly stay buried, and neither does this series. Dying Light: The Beast places you back in Kyle Crane’s shoes after years of suffering, granting you new powers and the same old parkour through a city teeming with death. The question is, does this feel like a true continuation of Dying Light, or does it come across more like a piece of DLC that outgrew its cage?
Where it starts
Immediately after the events of the first Dying Light, Kyle Crane was captured and taken to a research facility where the Baron has been performing brutal tests on Crane for thirteen years. Because of his unique resistance to the virus infecting over ninety percent of the planet’s population, Kyle’s body held crucial answers for the Baron. Fortunately, Kyle finally manages to escape from the Baron, allowing him to meet and work with locals to overthrow the Baron’s evil control over the land.
The Beast Within
Kyle’s body contains both human and zombie DNA, but he doesn’t fully resemble either. Due to his unique makeup, he has extreme strength and stamina, allowing him to unleash his beast for a short time and completely destroy enemies around him. When in this form, most attacks will kill a zombie in one hit, sometimes in the most awesomely gruesome way. As you deal and take damage, a meter will fill up; when full, Kyle will go into beast mode, gradually gaining some control over this ability as the story progresses through a special skill tree.
The World Outside
There is no fast travel in this game, forcing you to move across the land by any means necessary, usually hardcore parkour over and through buildings. Occasionally, an old ranger truck with a little gas can get you by pretty fast. As you uncover the map, you will find dark zones and safe houses, requiring you to clear out zombies, find loot, and have a cozy spot to sleep. Time always moves forward with a day and night cycle. During the day, most zombies are slow, with the random elite traipsing around, but at night, the terrifying and fast Volatiles come out to play. Making it best to sleep until morning when you can.
Scavenge Everything!
While exploring and fighting zombies, it’s best to grab everything you find on the ground or bodies of the fallen, rags, scraps, wiring, feathers, if it’s not nailed down, throw it in your bag. Everything is useful, sometimes for your own crafting, and sometimes the local trader will give you money to spend on other things. The best scrap is found in dark zones, small areas full of zombies that can be cleared quickly. After a short wait, these areas refill with enemies and loot, making perfect little farms to fill your bags.
Craft to Survive
When you’re in the wild, there are few things you can craft, like bandages for healing or maybe some firecrackers to distract zombies. You can even repair a weapon with scraps. More advanced items, such as weapons, can only be crafted at a workbench. At the workbench, you can craft anything you’ve found a blueprint for and, with the right items, upgrade the blueprint so your items are stronger. You will also be able to upgrade your weapons to your current level, so they don’t lose strength as the world grows more dangerous around you.
Survival Instincts
At any time, you can activate Kyle’s survivor sense, sending out a sonar pulse that highlights collectible items and the positions of tough enemies—an essential skill for sneaking around. You will also have skill trees to develop as you level up, enhancing abilities like stealth or weapon proficiency. Experience gain is slow if you just kill zombies, most will be gained by completing quests. At level cap all of the skill trees will be filled out, so no need to worry about specific builds.
Can the kids watch (check settings)
This being a first-person zombie game with most combat dealt with melee weapons, you can imagine it will get very graphic. While swinging weapons at zombies, wherever you hit will become a bloody, bony mess, until you finish them with decapitation or head popping. While in beast mode, you will be ripping limbs and heads from your foes consistently. It also seemed like Kyle’s new favorite word was the F word, used in nearly every other statement out of his mouth.
Final Thoughts
I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.
I’ve loved the Dying Light series ever since the first game was released ten years ago, and The Beast continues with the exciting feeling of parkour and fighting off countless zombies with just a sharp weapon for defense. Playing from a first-person perspective enhances the entire experience, and with Kyle Crane’s athleticism, there’s practically nothing out of his reach. Climbing buildings and jumping over zombies is a blast, and it gets even better when you unlock the grappling hook, which increases speed and reach. I would say the best part of these games is the traversal system.
A couple of problems I had with the game were the large open spaces I had to traverse and reading the map. The main map used is a tourist map, with true north being in the bottom right. Before I actually figured that out, I was consistently going in the wrong direction using the compass in my HUD. Eventually, I kind of got used to it, but it felt like an unnecessary game design. When traveling outside the city, vehicles were available for longer distances, but they always had low fuel levels. The initial tank would get me quite far, but if I wanted to go further, I had to find gas lying around and fill up the vehicle, often while in danger. It might not be much faster traveling through a city and climbing around buildings, but it’s a lot more entertaining than wandering through an open field full of zombies. However, scattered throughout the entire game were areas I would need to clear out and achieve some objective, so it wasn’t completely empty outside of the city.
The game looks fantastic, with well-designed areas and impressive zombie dismemberment effects. I especially enjoyed the music and ambient sounds. The music isn’t always playing in the world, but I loved the soundtrack from the first game, and this one feels very reminiscent of it. When I’m out in the city and standing still, I can hear the wind or the sound of a bottle being knocked over in the distance as the mindless zombies shuffle around, creating a sense of feeling alone but the city is alive with the dead.
The overall story was so-so. Very cool to be playing as Kyle Crane again, I think the biggest problem is trying to introduce anything new in a world that was created years ago, and keep the same formula working. There is only so many ways to show how to sneak into a zombie invested building and turn the power back on. However, the side quests are entertaining and worth completing. Some far more challenging than others, but always rewarding and sometimes introducing some new enemy type or blueprint.
As fun as the game is I wouldn’t want to start over and replay it. The game is linear with a lot to explore. Going through the effort of leveling up and finding good gear sounds tedious and not worthwhile. But there is quite a bit to discover and do, even after the final credits roll. So no replayability, but a long playtime to keep you busy for a while.
I’ve had a lot of fun playing this game. Even after I finished the main story, I’m still exploring and finishing up anything I missed the first time. I enjoy the gameplay and exploration, but it can get repetitive. I like it for an hour or two, but eventually I get tired and put the game down for a while. The Beast was originally going to be DLC, but the developers kept adding to it and turned it into a full game. It feels like more than a DLC, but not quite enough to be a full game. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it seemed like some things were missing by the time I finished.
With that, let’s get down to the numbers and what shelf this game belongs on.
The visuals were great, the small details in combat and destruction of old decaying monsters really showed how gross zombies can be, but in a cool entertaining way. I’m giving that a 4
The story was entertaining enough to get me through the whole game; nothing truly mind-blowing or amazing, it’s getting a 3.
I love this gameplay. The first-person parkour through an undead city is awesome, and running, fighting, or distracting zombies everywhere I went always kept me on my toes—that’s a 5.
Not much replayability, with a linear story and a tough climb to level cap; I wouldn’t want to start over again, that’s a 1.
So much fun in this game. The only thing I’d dock it on would be the copy-pasting of some dark zones and the repetitive nature of everything. That’s a 4.
Giving Dying Light: The Beast an average score of 3.4 out of 5. Earning it a spot on my top shelf. If you’ve never played a Dying Light game, I highly recommend checking out the first one. I’ve seen it on sale often over the past decade, and there may be some spoilers in this game if you haven’t played that. The Beast is a great way to experience more of the Dying Light magic in a new environment with some new mechanics. It takes a lot of your time to finish but doesn’t feel as complete as the original. Waiting for a small sale probably wouldn’t hurt.