Genre: Survival Horror
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Warner Bros.

All games have the "technical versus artistic" dichotomy, but in Dying Light's case there is a pretty severe disconnect between the two. Technically, the engine is reflective of the fact that yes, console generation seven is finally over. There are tons of particle effects flying around everywhere, and loads of post-processing effects. Artistically though, the use of colors, the area designs, and the quality of things like the textures and models are extremely uneven, making for a fairly ugly game on the balance.

Like most other contemporary big-budget games, Dying Light has the very generic "Hollywood soundtrack #43" stuff going on. This one even features the "moaning Indian guy" trope quite heavily in the "music", raising Dying Light to an extra high level of annoyingness. Voice acting is very tropey as well, and even downright silly, what with hispanic voice actors doing Russian accents. From an aural standpoint, Dying Light has a barely passing grade-- let's say a D-minus.

Dying Light's core game loop is fairly enjoyable, as it's spent clambering up and over terrain, while bringing down the hammer on hoardes of zombies using things like freeze grenades and drop-kicks. The world is fairly expansive, although perhaps a bit too uniform to stay interesting over the game's huge length-- a length padded especially when sidequests are pursued.

Dying Light, in a rather obsequious manner, ticks all of the modern, big-budget boxes. Open world? Check. Crafting? Check. Zombies? Check. Voice-acted narrative? Check. Parkour? Check. Skill trees? Check. There is a fun game buried underneath all of the "we have to get this past the marketers" rubbish, but it's a shame that the developers couldn't have found a way to be a little less conservative, and apply their sensibilities in ways that are more novel and interesting.