Dying Light The Beast Gave Me A Car And A Gun But I Just Couldnt Stop Dropkicking Zombies

Dying Light: The Beast was once going to be an expansion to the main game, but it grew to be so big that developer Techland eventually spun it off into a standalone experience. It's not Dying Light 3, but the team told me it feels The Beast is the best version of what the Dying Light series has been since it debuted a decade ago. I played 30 minutes of The Beast during Summer Game Fest Play Days 2025, and though its story still seems to be a comic-booky saga I struggle to get invested in, I'm definitely on board for some of what's it's bringing--and bringing back--to the series.

My demo started just before nightfall, and if you know Dying Light, you know it's not so easy to survive when the sun goes down. The new map in The Beast features a lot of forest area, which I really liked playing in. A developer told me the game is meant to be scarier than before, and the signature parkour gameplay has actually been dialed back a little bit to match The Beast protagonist Kyle Crane's canon abilities. He can't jump quite as far as Dying Light 2: Stay Human's Aiden Caldwell, which grounds the game a bit, even as so much of it remains over-the-top.

Crane is a fan-favorite protagonist from the first game and returns to this one on a revenge mission, chasing down the man who ruined his life. The story in these games resonates with a great number of its fans, but I've not counted myself among them. I don't expect The Beast to change that, but the series has always achieved its core gameplay goals, and that aspect seems well in place once more.