After speculations, a delay, and a weird bit of PR, Dying Light 2: Stay Human has finally hit store shelves. Players looking for a sequel to Techland's well-received first game will definitely be elated with this game, which basically expands upon almost every aspect from the first game. Everything from the incredible combat to the brilliant traversal mechanics feels great and intuitive to use, making for an awesome time as players explore each nook and cranny of Villedor while dealing with the undead denizens that reside within.
That being said, Dying Light 2 is far from being a perfect experience. Just like the first game, its sequel also has its fair share of issues that range from minor oversights to glaring problems that take away from the overall fun factor of the experience. Keeping this in mind, the most flawed aspects of Dying Light 2 are mentioned below.
7 Making The Main Narrative More Exciting (Somehow)
This is probably the biggest thing that needs to be rectified in Dying Light 2. Techland has placed a greater focus on the story of this game, so it's a shame that the narrative is still quite threadbare and doesn't really hold the player's attention... even when it's being shoved down their throats.
At this point, it can be quite tough to try and make these story moments more exciting. A few additional scenes that contextualize Aiden's actions might be a decent fix... but this can add to the game's problems if not executed properly.
6 Adding More Depth And Personality To The Characters, Including Aiden Himself
Dying Light 2 sports a large cast of main and side characters that Aiden will encounter in his journey to rid Villedor of the zombie plague. However, none of these characters are particularly engaging, and their personalities feel almost wooden at times.
This can be fixed with the addition of more dialogue, scenes, and everything else along the same lines. Even Aiden could do with a makeover of his own, since he feels like a rather passive character who's just along for the ride instead of taking an active part in combating the zombie epidemic.
5 Improving The Animations And Textures Of These Characters As Well
While Dying Light 2's visual fidelity is pretty great in its own right, there are times when the game shows its weaknesses in this department as well. This is mainly noticeable in the rather plastic-y look to certain characters, giving them a rather uncanny valley look.
If that wasn't bad enough as is, some NPC animations are absolutely stilted and wooden. This can be bad for the immersion of the game, so it would be great if Techland could tweak these textures and animations to make them more lifelike.
4 Reducing The Dependency That Players Have On Scanning The Environment
As is the case with most open worlds, Dying Light 2 also features the dreaded mechanic of scanning the environment every few seconds to find items, treasure, loot, and everything else along the same lines. Obviously enough, relying on this mechanic becomes quite tiring at times, even though it may be necessary, especially in indoor areas.
Techland can try various fixes to combat this reliance on such a lazy mechanic. Either these lootable items can be made more visually distinct, or their presence can be highlighted automatically when Aiden is near such interactable objects.
3 Trusting Players With Finding Points Of Interest On The Map Instead Of Holding Their Hand
Another open-world gaming trope that Dying Light 2 incorporates is the need to scan the environment with binoculars from high vantage points to reveal points of interest. This would've been a rather engaging way to explore the map if the game trusted the player enough to realize which places should be explored.
As it stands, Dying Light 2 goes into autopilot mode whenever these binoculars come out, marking spots on the map when players focus on them... even if they might be obscured by the environment as well! This kills the sense of exploration and discovery in-game, so Techland should take a page out of Breath of the Wild and either make these areas more visually distinct or trust players to find these areas during their travels.
2 Reducing The Overall Length Of The Game
A huge problem with Dying Light 2 is the excessive length of the game. The fact that the developers thought that a 500-hour playtime is something to brag about shows just how much this game likes to pad out its runtime.
Dying Light 2's quality can be improved immensely by removing filler content and improving the pacing of the game. As it stands right now, the game lasts around 40 hours but will lose players halfway through the experience since there's almost nothing new to keep them engaged after this point.
1 Tweaking The Paraglider To Make It Less Frustrating
The paraglider is a great addition to Dying Light 2, making the parkour of this game even more engaging. Floating around the game world and maintaining a sense of momentum is pretty great, even though the paraglider itself can be rather imprecise to control at times.
This isn't a huge issue in most cases but becomes particularly irritating during challenge missions that require players to use the paraglider. Trying to make precise turns with such a flimsy tool turns from a minor source of annoying to a huge area of frustration in record time!
