The Dying Light games have become a reliable series of quality first-person action RPG horror games. The first game is a certifiable classic, and The Following was a pretty awesome campaign expansion. When you played them altogether, it was like one massive super game that delivered a lot of bang for your buck.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human furthered the story with a time jump and a new protagonist. Set in the dense metropolis of Viledor, the series’s night-and-day mechanics, where volatile super-powered mutants emerge at night, are given a new dimension with the expanded scope. You weren’t just running for your life through sheet-metal shanties anymore; you were in the big city, with bigger threats.
Aiden from Stay Human has had his fun. Our hero, Kyle Crane from the first game and The Following, has returned in this full-fledged stand-alone adventure. Welcome to Castor Woods. Where the sights are gore-geous and the locals are ready to eat you.
Dying Light: The Beast
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Techland
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: September 18, 2025
Price: $59.99
Thirteen years after Kyle Crane’s guts got twisted into a volatile cocktail in The Following, the GREs got him leashed like a rabid lab rat, conducting endless experiments on him, making him into some kind of hybrid. Like in all zombie outbreak games with secret labs, all hell breaks loose, and Crane wants to get some payback from an enigmatic figure known as “The Baron”. With nothing left to lose, he escapes and finds himself in a rural hellhole called Castor Woods.
The scale of the new setting isn’t as big as the map from Dying Light 2, although it is still formidable and jam-packed with activities and secrets to uncover. Like in past games, Crane will struggle to survive in a zombie-infested region while activating safe houses, scrounging for resources like a hobo, and helping out other survivors in Castor Woods.
The side stories are as fleshed out and polished as the main story missions. In fact, they are the highlight of the game because they have more compelling plotlines and scenarios than Crane’s main quest. The main story’s driving mystery is predictable, and most of the plot meanders because it revolves around the fact that Crane is out of shape from years of being in a lab and has to regain most of his strength if he hopes to take on the Baron and his men.
Doing the side stuff is essential, not just because it’s where the better storylines are, but because The Beast is much stingier with XP than past games. It takes much longer to level up when fighting zombies during the day, and while values are tripled at night, the night is also dramatically shorter than the day cycle. That is assuming you’ll survive, because enemies are stronger and volatiles emerge, usually in groups.
Most of this is familiar territory for anyone who has played the prior games. The Beast’s main new gimmick is Crane’s roid-rage freak-outs, where he goes berserk and thrashes foes like he’s some kind of doom man. Along with this new mechanic is an expanded skill tree that further expands Crane’s bestial wrath.
Abilities like lifting massive objects and hurling them into a crowd of shamblers like they’re bowling pins is as satisfying as it sounds. Activating beast mode further expands Crane’s mobility, and the branch offers skills to leap and smash like he’s the Incredible Hulk. The beast mode abilities are a worthy addition to the series and help mix things up when Crane’s inventory is running dry or when he’s in a pinch late at night.
Combat is not much of a leap from prior games. Crane has a wide range of melee moves and countless different weapon types with their bespoke playability. His feral fighting style is aggressive with sumptuous grit when the broadside of a flaming sledgehammer connects to the gooey and pulpy scalp of a drooling zombie.
Seeing bits and chunks come off foes when throwing down the gauntlet is satisfying and puts you in an animalistic mindset when ripping these creatures apart. This is the kind of violence you feel, and seeing all the bodies pile up in your wake puts into perspective just how bad the GRE screwed up.
For ranged attacks, there are several varieties of guns, longbows, and crossbows, with the latter having different elemental arrow types to have fun with. For when you want to really look cool, the ability to slow down time while aiming in mid-air gives Crane Legolas-style prowess and accuracy for deadly trickshots.
Fighting the undead is what you expect, but fighting The Baron’s paramilitary force is almost as dangerous as a gang of volatiles. These guys always come in packs, wear body armor, can use guns, and when trying to engage them, they will surround you. They’re adept at blocking your melee attacks and can lob grenades too.
At first, they seem like a worthy adversary, but the rate at which the game throws these guys at you becomes unbearable. Thankfully, a clever gamer can find amusing ways to dispatch them, like luring volatiles to their post and letting them all fight for their lives. If that’s too much, chucking molotov cocktails at their feet and setting them ablaze is an effective suckerpunch when they keep blocking your attacks.
While he has to relearn them, most of Crane’s old moves are back. The body slams, the vaulting, and even The Following‘s hook shot are back. Any vehicle with an operable engine is drivable and uses fuel, which adds some variety from all the parkour and helps keep the landscape from becoming too samey.
If all of this is sounding like The Beast is more of the same, it’s because it is. Thankfully, what The Beast offers is still quality Dying Light content that lasts for well over 30 hours. It may not be a huge buffet like Stay Human, but it’s still more substantial and varied than most horror action games out there.
If you wanted more of the series, Dying Light: The Beast delivers. Crane’s berserker mode is a fun addition that makes him even more violent than he was before.
The parkour is some of the smoothest and most reactive ever executed in any first-person game, and Castor Woods is one of the more fun settings in the Dying Light games yet.
Dying Light: The Beast was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Techland. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Dying Light: The Beast is now available for PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
