Dying Light: The Beast review – Fun but forgettable zombie-slaying

Dying Light: The Beast shines through its gory combat, smooth parkour, and stunning open world, but a lackluster story and forgettable Beast Mode dull its bite.

Originally developed as a DLC for Dying Light 2: Stay Human, The Beast grew into a standalone release. This time, the series trades city skylines for a zombie-ravaged Europe, with the original’s hero back in the spotlight.

The result is a game that carries all the franchise’s strengths and flaws, offering a thrilling zombie-slaying experience that doesn’t quite leave a lasting mark.

Dying Light: The Beast screenshots

What is Dying Light: The Beast about?

You play as Kyle Crane, a protagonist as bland as his name, who has been held captive and experimented on by the dastardly baron for the last 13 years. Now, he wants revenge and is willing to sacrifice his humanity to get it. 

It’s set in Castor Woods, a scenic region somewhere in Europe. It’s hard to say where, as all the signs are in English and most residents have English accents, but it’s inspired by the Swiss Alps.

It’s a fairly simple revenge story, where underpowered Crane needs to slay different chimeras (super zombies) to literally suck out and inject their powers into himself to level up. You’ll also be helping out other survivors around the area to help you in your fight against the baron. 

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Forgettable story

Dying Light: The Beast’s story is a serviceable narrative, and its roughly 20-hour length doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it’s far from compelling. 

It’s very linear, where you “yes man” your way through different errands for a couple of factions in the area to gain their favour.

The highlight is the chimera boss fights, which offer a nice change of pace and can be genuinely creepy at times. However, not enough time is spent on Crane struggling to balance the human and the beast after acquiring new abilities. 

The sidequests also do a good job of padding out the short story, as well as gaining XP and exploring more of the map that the main quest doesn’t send you to. 

Old Town is perfect for parkour

Castor Woods is gorgeous. From the scenic Old Town to the idyllic suburbs and sun-kissed countryside, it’s a stunning location that rewards exploration. 

The Old Town is the highlight, as it has clearly been built with parkour mechanics in mind. You can climb almost anything, and once you get into the flow of leaping from rooftop to rooftop, running through derelict apartments, and dodging zombies, it’s exhilarating.

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Free running is excellent when it works, but can be slightly frustrating when you think you can make a jump but can’t, or find yourself faceplanting wall after wall because it looks like you should be able to climb something, but you can’t. 

The rural setting means that there are a lot of forests and fields, which look great and reward exploration, but you’re often left driving a car or simply running through the countryside, which can get tedious and feel like a step back from Old Town. 

Combat is a mixed bag

Bashing zombies over the head is as fun as it was in the first Dead Island, and watching the flesh get ripped off in real time never gets old. The way the zombies react to where you’re hitting them and what you’re hitting them with is very satisfying, and it’s where Dying Light: The Beast truly shines. 

You’ll soon get in the habit of looting everything – as in the previous games, weapons have durability, so you’ll need to frequently repair, upgrade, and find bigger and better tools. It’s not overly punishing, and it encourages you to try new things. 

Combat isn’t quite as good when fighting against humans. They’ll dodge your attacks and create distance, which can be frustrating to use melee weapons against. Instead, you’ll be drop-kicking them to the ground or shooting them, which gets the job done, but it doesn’t feel as satisfying as melee. 

Melee combat is great, gunplay is fine, but Beast Mode is more like an overpowered get-out-of-jail-free card than a fun gameplay mechanic. While there are a few more abilities to unlock as you defeat chimeras, it’s mostly a case of spamming the trigger to punch enemies until they’re dead. 

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It’s not something I ever looked forward to activating – I just used it when I was about to die, wanted to quickly clear a group of zombies, or deal big damage to a chimera. 

Verdict

Will you look back on Dying Light: The Beast as one of the best and most memorable games you played in 2025? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have a good time. 

There’s a lot to like here, but just not a lot to love. Battering zombies and leaping from rooftop to rooftop is undeniably great fun, running away from Volatiles at nighttime is a genuine thrill, and the open world looks great. 

However, Kyle Crane is a straightforward protagonist in a straightforward story that didn’t compel me to push forward out of interest in the plot, and the new Beast Mode mechanic doesn’t add anything of value.