Dying Light: The Beast – Review: What is New?

Forget what you know about Villedor. Forget the floaty parkour and the forgiving nights. I have been playing Dying Light: The Beast for over 100 hours in an early access build, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: this is not the Dying Light you remember. This is the one you’ve been waiting for. It’s more ambitious, it’s genuinely terrifying, and it’s more brutal than anything developer Techland has ever done.

This new installment is a masterful evolution of the series, blending the best elements of the original Dying Light‘s gritty horror and the sprawling, forested dread of its The Following expansion with a host of stunning new features and next-generation physics. The gameplay, the new mechanics, the visceral combat, the grounded parkour, and that heart-pounding nighttime horror—all of it just clicks together to create what is shaping up to be the perfect Dying Light experience. This is our deep dive into everything new and improved in Dying Light: The Beast.

The World of Castor Woods: A Handcrafted Return to Form

The portion of the game I experienced was set in Castor Woods, a massive new map that immediately evokes a powerful sense of nostalgia while feeling entirely new. At its heart is a location called “Old Town,” a dense, urban cluster of rooftops and alleyways that feels like a spiritual successor to the beloved map from the first game. What is immediately striking is that every house, every rooftop, and every parkour path feels meticulously handmade. This is not a procedurally generated city; it’s a carefully designed playground that perfectly blends the tight, vertical parkour of Dying Light 1 with the open, natural horror of The Following‘s countryside.

The rest of the map is a sprawling forest filled with iconic locations, hidden secrets, and unique biomes waiting to be discovered. What truly elevates this new world is the incredible attention to detail and the introduction of a new physics system that makes the environment feel more dynamic and interactive than ever before. During one fight, I threw a grenade near a small tree and was shocked to see the tree actually splinter and collapse from the force of the blast.

In another moment, I used a flamethrower on a wooden wall, and it not only burned but left a permanent, charred scar on the surface. This level of environmental interactivity is everywhere: van doors will crumple and break when you dropkick a zombie into them, and the glass in windows, paintings on walls, and even some furniture will shatter and break during a chaotic fight.

The Core Gameplay: Grounded Physics, Fluid Parkour, and Next-Gen Water

One of the most significant and welcome changes in Dying Light: The Beast is a complete overhaul of the physics and parkour systems, addressing a major criticism from the previous game.

Grounded and Gritty Parkour

The movement in Dying Light 2 was often described as “floaty.” That is gone. The parkour in The Beast feels grounded, weighty, and responsive. When you perform a far jump, your character falls with a realistic sense of speed and gravity. Dropkicks no longer feel like you are flying through the air; they are fast, brutal, and land with a satisfying impact that immediately brings you back to the ground. In a massive quality-of-life improvement, players now have infinite stamina while climbing, allowing you to scale huge buildings and cliffs without the frustrating need to stop and rest.

The Glorious Return of Ragdolls and Flashlight Inertia

The ragdoll physics have been dramatically improved. I tested this by luring a horde of zombies to the edge of a tall building. As the zombies in the back pushed forward, the ones at the front realistically stumbled and tumbled off the edge, their bodies flailing as they fell. Zombies will now even collapse under your weight if you jump on top of them. Even better, the beloved flashlight inertia from the first game is back. As you move and turn, your flashlight beam now sways with a realistic, weighty momentum, adding a huge layer of immersion, especially during the terrifying nights.

Next-Generation Water Mechanics

The water in The Beast is a technical marvel. Throwing a grenade into a lake results in a massive, satisfying splash—a feature completely absent from Dying Light 2. Zombies react to the density and resistance of the water, and in a fantastic new twist, they no longer instantly die in shallow water. An infected that you throw into a waist-deep pond can and will get back up and shamble out to continue its attack. The world also feels more alive, with fish now visibly swimming in the rivers and lakes. In a final, grimly realistic touch, the dead bodies of zombies will actually float to the surface a few minutes after they are killed in the water.

The Terrifying Night: A Return to True Horror

Dying Light: The Beast makes the night scary again. This is largely thanks to the return of a proper dynamic day and night cycle. Unlike the “slideshow” style skybox of Dying Light 2, the sun in The Beast physically moves across the sky, casting long, dynamic shadows as it rises and sets.

This leads to a nighttime that is truly pitch black. Without a flashlight, you are completely blind. During certain weather events, like a thick fog or a heavy storm, the darkness becomes so oppressive that you are forced to constantly spam your survivor sense just to navigate. It is in this terrifying darkness that the game’s new nighttime encounters thrive. You’ll stumble upon mysterious red flares in the distance, only to find a deadly Banshee feasting on a corpse.

And for the first time, you will discover Volatile Nests. These areas, which look like the Freaker nests from Days Gone during the day, become swarming hives of active Volatiles at night, creating a massive new high-risk, high-reward point of interest for the bravest of players.

The Beast Within: Evolved Combat, Brutal Gore, and New Skills

The combat in Dying Light: The Beast is a visceral and deeply satisfying experience, thanks to a host of new skills and a revolutionary new gore system.

Unleashing The Beast

The new “Beast Mode” skills are a game-changer. The new Grappling Hook is a perfect blend of the versions from the first two games, allowing you to not only swing but also pull yourself towards any surface, including trees. New combat skills like the devastating Ground Pound and the strategic Heavy Lift, which allows you to pick up and throw environmental objects at your enemies, add a new layer of creativity to every fight. The new finishing move animations are incredibly brutal, especially the unique finishers for special infected like Goons and Volatiles.

A New Standard in Gore

The new dynamic gore system is not for the faint of heart. Wounds appear on enemies’ bodies exactly where you strike them. You can methodically dismember zombies, taking off their legs and forcing them to crawl after you. Blood will realistically splatter onto your character’s hands, clothes, and even their face, a grim reminder of the brutality of your fight for survival.

Honest Criticisms and Final Thoughts

While my 100 hours with the game were overwhelmingly positive, it is an early access build and not without its flaws. The regular Biter zombies grab the player far too frequently, often interrupting parkour and combat in a frustrating way. The human AI can be unresponsive, failing to react when you aim a gun at them. And while the base parkour is excellent, the skill tree progression for it feels a bit lacking, with some animations, like ledge grabs, that can kill your momentum.

However, these are fixable issues. The core of Dying Light: The Beast is exceptionally strong. The return of features like weapon blueprints as world collectibles, on-the-go weapon repair, the camouflage skill, and a proper trader-and-crafting-bench system feels like a perfect evolution of the original game’s best ideas. The game runs incredibly well, and the new music from composer Olivier Derivière is phenomenal.

This is the Dying Light game that fans have been waiting for. It successfully merges the best parts of the series’ past with ambitious and immersive new features. If this early build is anything to go by, the full release is going to be something truly special. For any fan of survival, horror, and parkour, this is an absolute must-play.

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