GDC 2018 – Dying Light: Bad Blood preview
Techland once again shows they can infuse life into the world of zombie games with Dying Light Bad Blood.
Zombie outbreaks may be one of the most overused plot devices in gaming history, yet just like brains into a zombie, I can still be sucked in. Techland has been responsible for two of my favorite zombie games in the past few years with Dead Island and Dying Light and have turned those games into popular franchises. This time, the Techland team is looking to take their shot at the increasingly popular battle royale genre with Dying Light: Bad Blood.
The game is not a true last one left standing battle royale game like PUBG, but is a six-player multiplayer survival game. Though more like a mini rumble than a royal one, the Techland marketing machine is definitely lumping itself into the battle royale world.
Not being a big PvP kind of gamer, I don’t really play battle royale games, but came away from my PC play session with Dying Light: Bad Blood pretty excited for the upcoming global playtest. The parkour zombie killing action in the game is some really frantic fun and having to take out zombie enemies first before other players kept me very engaged in the game.
Dying Light: Bad Blood drops you into an evacuation zone with five other players. Apparently, there is a chopper with only one seat left coming to rescue you before nightfall. It looks like in the world of Dying Light the value of bitcoin has dropped so low that you now have to pay for seats on the extraction helicopter with blood samples taken from the ever lively zombie town folk.
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Though you can grab a little of the blood from everyday joe zombie, you have to take out the area bosses to really load up on the plasma points. Taking out these bosses will bring your level up and once you get enough blood, its get to the choppa time. In my gameplay session, I encountered both a brutish goon boss and a ranged attack spitter boss. Prior to my fight with the spitter boss, I got access to a room with a legendary pick ax, grenades, and several medkits. Since you have a limited supply of support items you can hold I decided to hold onto mostly medkits, a decision I would regret later.
The game gives you a multitude of melee weapons to find but you may want to get to the supply airdrop and get ranged weapons for a decisive advantage. During my battle with the spitter I wasted most of my grenades and arrows on it trying not to lose my energy. After grabbing the blood sample I raced to the helicopter point to steal a high-level player’s supply before the got on. Without any ranged weapons, the high-level player easily took me out and hopped on the helicopter.
My official Dying Light: Bad Blood record is 0-1 but the game was very satisfying and as a person who does not like PvP games I think I may take this one up in an attempt to make $500,000 a month as a pro gamer. Ninja may have his Fortnite and Drake but I’m looking to go pro and get Taylor Swift on my Bad Blood stream. To get that started I asked the Dying Light: Bad Blood PR team if they wouldn’t mind if I did a little remix trailer. Hopefully Ms. Swift is a PC gamer.
The global playtest for Dying Light: Bad Blood will be happening soon and you can sign up here for more info.