Mini-review: No, I don’t want to play Dying Light 2 for 500 hours

Enlarge / Every image in this review was captured while playing the near-final retail version on a Windows 10 PC. That includes a shot of this underwhelming mini-boss zombie, who does little more than wave around an oversized weapon while slowly stumbling. The same issue applies to most of the game's ho-hum zombie cast. (credit: Techland)

Eventually, Dying Light 2 opens up and becomes an OK game. I needed to play this sequel for roughly 12 hours to see the premise of the original 2015 game-"run away from zombies in a first-person view, and combine parkour with rusty machetes for bloody combat"-go somewhere satisfying.

But Dying Light 2's early segments are boring and repetitive. The tutorials are overlong, and the first zone is claustrophobic. And its plot setup and dialogue feel like they've been stitched together at the last minute-with a pinch of weird English translations tossed in.

Want to blow up zombies and then slice their remains with a hacksaw? DL2 has you covered. (credit: Techland)

If you mash the "skip dialogue" button every chance you get and ignore any zombie-game fatigue you may have, you might cut DL2's shoulder shrug of an opening down to eight hours of adequate, repetitive first-person action. Only then will you find yourself in a sprawling, fun-filled megacity. By that point, however, I was too worn out to keep playing. I wasn't remotely close to developer Techland's lofty estimate of 500 hours of play.

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