Let’s simp over Dying Light before Dying Light 2 Stay Human Releases

We are only a couple of weeks away from the release of Dying Light 2 Stay Human and to say that I am excited is a SEVERE understatement. I have been waiting for this game since I completed the first game. Ask anyone in my life (or any poor unfortunate soul to cross my path), I will talk up how amazing the first game is until I am blue in the face and I maintain that the soundtrack to Dying Light is one of the best game OSTs out there. I could write something making speculations on the new game, or bitch about the 500 hour completion bomb that was dropped on Twitter (which I am not going to because I love a big game) but I want to take 300 words or more to simp over this incredible franchise, why it’s amazing and why I’m so damn excited for Dying Light 2 Stay Human!

Keep in mind, there are all of the Dying Light game spoilers up ahead, but just the first game…I’m not a monster or a psychic. The world of Dying Light is expansive and intricate. The timeline begins with a companion novella by Raymond Benson called Dying Light: Nightmare Row. It tells of the genesis of the Harran virus and how it spread during the Harran Global Athletic Games in 2015. Once the virus had taken a firm grip throughout the city, the entirety of Harran was closed off from the world, only getting supplies from the Global Relief Effort (GRE). According to Roanoke Gaming (and the in-game Dr. Zere), a Microbiologist turned Youtuber who discusses the biology of diseases from various movies and video games, the Harran virus is a mutated form of rabies, leaving those infected aggressive with an aversion to UV rays. The infected aren’t technically dead and those who are bitten aren’t entirely lost causes thanks to a medication called Antizin. Antizin halts the progression of the virus as long as Antizin is regularly injected.

Kyle Crane, an agent for the GRE, is sent into the quarantined city to locate a man named Suleiman, who stole a very sensitive file from the GRE and went into hiding in Harran. Immediately upon landing, Crane gets bitten because plot armor doesn’t exist in Dying Light. He is picked up by a group of survivors from one of the last major outposts in the city, The Tower. Crane goes undercover as a runner for The Tower and destroys an Antizin drop to force the group to rely on Rais, a real pain in the butt with a penchant for limb removal. It turns out that Rais is Suleiman and is obviously untrustworthy. After some shady deals, a bunch of parkour and the GRE cutting off supplies from Harran, Crane cuts his own ties with the GRE and vows to help the people of the city. Unfortunately, the GRE and the Defense Ministry has convinced the outside world that there are no more survivors in Harran and every plan the survivors have to prove there are, the GRE swoops in and mucks it up. They also plan to neutralize the entire city.

Rais decides to make a deal with the GRE and steal the research of Dr. Zere, who is working on a cure for the Harran virus and the GRE wants that research. Oh, and what was that mysterious file that Rais stole from the GRE? That would be their plans to weaponize the virus for the military, proving further that everyone sucks. One thing leads to another and Rais is dead on a skyscraper and the research goes into the capable hands of another doctor and Crane stays in Harran to help. That is until Dying Light: The Following sends Crane into the countryside after a survivor tells of a town that has a cure for the Harran virus and the dead won’t attack them. With Antizin in short supply, Kyle makes the journey and finds in the middle of a weird cult called Children of the Sun that follow a leader called The Mother. The Mother is the source of the immunity and why is that? Well, I’m glad you asked. The dam where she resides used to be a military facility housing all kinds of fun chemicals.

Exposure to one of those chemicals turned The Mother into a sentient Volatile (you know, those extremely dangerous mutations that only come out at night and have some major TMJ?) who turns into a full on homicidal volatile at night. There are two ways to end the DLC: either you fight The Mother and expose yourself to said chemical and turn into a sentient volatile OR you find a nuclear warhead and blow the countryside, Harran and the virus all to hell. Now, neither one of those options leaves Crane to survive in any capacity, so have fun with that. That leaves us with the history leading up to Dying Light 2 Stay Human, which was revealed during the first episode of Dying 2 Know by the World Director,Thomas Gerbaud.

For five years after Harran was cut off from the world, secret labs did what secret labs do best and by that I mean they messed around with things they shouldn’t have and right before Christmas in 2021, a mutated strain of the Harran virus leaks from one of the labs and makes its way around the world, taking out the majority of the population. Fifteen years after that, the world is in a “modern dark age” where civilization has gotten its footing again but no one is truly safe. In Dying Light 2 Stay Human, we follow Aiden Caldwell who is looking for his sister Mia in the city of Villedor. Villedor is the last city that remains anywhere. Villedor and its surrounding land was treated with a chemical in an effort to kill the infected but all it did was kill anything organic so nothing can and will be able to grow there and the things that remained mutated into something even more dangerous than their predecessors. Flora and fauna found life in higher altitudes on top of the buildings and skyscrapers of the city where the survivors try to thrive.

The infected are even more sensitive to UV rays than their predecessors, so buildings are near impassable during the day as the infected will crowd away from the sun. At night, the buildings clear for passage. Those that are infected with the virus and haven’t turned completely can halt the infection by standing in direct sunlight, which harms the virus…much like it does to rabies. See the connection? That was a fun little change in the virus’s biology that subtly shows the mutations in the newly infected.

There’s not too much more that we know about the story of Dying Light 2 Stay Human except that the decisions you make during your quests will have real consequences that could change relationships and even accessible areas of the map. In a controversial tweet from Techland, they claim that a full 100% completion of the game will take around 500 hours. That is a ton of replayablility on top of the guaranteed 5 YEARS of support and DLCs that will be given to Dying Light 2 Stay Human and after all of the new content for the first came that continued to trickle out along with events throughout the year, we know that Techland is good for it. Regardless of how you feel about the games themselves, you have to admit that Techland takes care of its gamers to keep them happy as they develop new things.

If you have followed the many episodes of Dying 2 Know and seen all of the trailers, there was one moment in, I believe, the final trailer where you hear an unknown character say, “Crane would have loved this,” and I nearly spit my drink all over my phone. Up until that moment, there was no real connection to the first game outside of the virus. Let me explain, of course Dying Light 2 is connected to the first game, I mean it’s a variation of the Harran virus and Harran is mentioned repeatedly in the trailers. What I mean is this is the first time we have heard a direct connection to a previous character. Maybe it’s just because I am such a hardcore fan of the first game, but that little mention of Crane just warmed all my cockles.

I mentioned in the beginning how the Dying Light OST is one of the best and I mean that. There is something about riding in your car at dusk and hearing those light, dulcet tones that lead into the synth beats that makes you, for a moment, think that you need to make your way to a safe house and fast. Pawel Blaszczak did an incredible job and I hope that the soundtrack to its sequel is just as good. A good OST can create an environment of a game just as much as the visual design. The ambient noise of Dying Light was terrifying and hearing the Volatiles scream at nightfall will never NOT give me the chills. Dying Light 2 Stay Human has a different composer, so all we can do is wait and see.

There is just something special about this franchise. I have been a Techland zombie fan way back to Dead Island, and Dying Light seemed like the game we always wished Dead Island could be. With similar gameplay mechanics, weapon mods and sub tropical environment, there was a nostalgic feeling to playing Dying Light. But gone was the goofiness of Dead Island, replaced with a scariness that was missing in those games. The inclusion of the day/night cycle ramped up the terror and I found myself doing everything I could to avoid night missions. It seems like night missions may not be as avoidable in the new game, if

There is only two weeks until Dying Light 2 Stay Human is released and we can’t wait to try the new parkour mechanics, see if our choices REALLY affect the story and find out Aiden’s story. What part are you excited to experience in the new game? Let us know! Until then, good night and good luck.