Techland gave me the absolute honor of trying out Dying Light: The Beast at this year’s Summer Game Fest Play Days. I got to play a mission in Castor Woods decades after the zombie outbreak. Kyle has escaped from the baron’s lab and is heading to an abandoned factory used to experiment on chimeras, the baron’s zombie mutations.
The team took the visuals up a notch because I got lost in the look of the sun rays and their reflection on the surrounding water puddles. I will play this game, prioritizing visuals when it is released.
The game builds upon the improved mobility and parkour from Dying Light 2, creating an even smoother experience with visuals to match. Environmental effects were improved upon as well, as I was told electric damage will be buffed if the weather is rainy, and fire damage will be weaker in that weather, etc.
Now here’s the best part, shoutout to the team that worked on this because the gore and damage effects on the zombies blew me away. Every smash matters, every slash matters, and you can visually tell the difference in each strike as the zombies have various ways of being dismembered and just outright smush. It even goes down to the level of peeling of the zombie skin, giving you the natural image you would get attacking a zombie.
There’s a new rage mechanic that has Kyle tap into the effects of the experiments the baron did on him as he gets even more ferocious, only this time it’s with his bear hands. There was a point where I screamed as he squeezed a zombie head off with one hand with relative ease. That’s a stat I will 100% level up if you are getting a copy of the game. Think of it as a first-person version of Kratos’ rage in the new God of War games. At the end of the playthrough, Kyle injected himself with the blood of the chimera I killed. I believe this will play a key part in this game as he becomes some sort of superhuman chimera? See the chimera I fought below:
Dying Light: The Beast releases on August 21, 2025, for $59.99 on PC via Steam/Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X|S.