Dying Light 2 is an action role-playing survival horror video game featuring a zombie apocalyptic-themed open world. Set 22 years after Dying Light, it stars a new protagonist named Aiden Caldwell (voiced by Jonah Scott), who has various parkour skills. Players can perform actions such as climbing ledges, sliding, leaping off from edges, and wall running to quickly navigate the city. It was confirmed that there are over 3000 parkour animations to give a more fluid free-running experience. Tools such as a grappling hook and a paraglider also aid traversal in the city. Aiden can also use the undead to break his fall. The game is mostly melee-based with the majority of fighting using melee weapons. The melee weapons have a limited lifespan and will degrade as the player uses them in combat.[1] Long-range weapons such as crossbows, shotguns, and spears can be used as well. Weapons can be upgraded with different blueprints and components which can be found by breaking down weapons for craft parts. Aiden can utilize superhuman skills due to the infection.[2] New zombies have been added. Like the first game, the zombies are slow when exposed to sunlight, but they become more aggressive and hostile at night.[3] During the latter time of day, players can avoid zombies roaming the streets by staying on rooftops, who would otherwise hibernate inside buildings to avoid sunlight or explore the safe interior of buildings to find items.[4]
The game is set in the city of Villedor, a massive urban open world set in Europe that players can explore freely.[5] The map, which is four times bigger than the first game, is broken into seven distinct regions and each has its own landmarks and locations. When exploring the city, players can scavenge for scrap and resources to craft new items and weapons.[6] Players can activate windmills to attract survivors and merchants to set up settlements.[7] As the player explores the city, they will find inhibitors, which can be used to increase Aiden’s health or stamina.[8] Players meet different factions and have to make decisions that fundamentally change the state of the game’s world and how non-playable characters view Aiden. The consequences are far-reaching, with the player being able to bring prosperity to a faction while completely destroying another settlement. Making certain decisions will open up or seal-off areas in the city, encouraging players to complete multiple playthroughs.[9] Like its predecessor, the game features four-player cooperative multiplayer.[10]
Story
Setting
The 2014 zombie outbreak in Harran (depicted in Dying Light) ended with the death of all of the city’s citizens, with no reported survivors. The Global Relief Effort (GRE) is able to develop a vaccine for the Harran Virus, ending the threat of the zombie pandemic. Despite promises to cease all research on the virus, the GRE continued experimenting on it in secret for military purposes. In 2021, a mutated variant of the virus named Tachytransmissive Harran Virus (THV) escapes a GRE lab and starts a second pandemic that spreads faster than the first, sweeping across the world in an event called “The Fall”. The vaccine and Antizin are ineffective against the new strain of THV, but its effects can be suppressed with ultraviolet light.
By 2036, fifteen years after the Fall, much of the world’s population has been wiped out, human civilization has been reduced to a handful of scattered settlements, with the fictional walled European city of Villedor being one of the largest. Originally quarantined by the GRE, Villedor was spared the worst of the pandemic thanks to its quarantine walls keeping the hordes of infected out of the city. Control of the city is split between several factions, including the militaristic Peacekeepers, the independent Survivors, and the violent Renegades.
The main protagonist Aiden Caldwell is a Pilgrim, an individual brave enough to make the dangerous trek between human settlements. He decides to travel to Villedor in order to search for his lost sister, Mia.
Plot
Aiden makes his way to the city of Villedor after being notified that there is an informant that knows the whereabouts of Vincent Waltz, a doctor who experimented on Aiden and Mia when they were children, in hopes that Waltz knows Mia’s location. Aiden meets the informant, but is bitten by a Volatile and infected. The informant gives Aiden a working GRE electronic key, warning him that if Waltz gets his hands on it, Villedor is doomed. He instructs Aiden to take the key to the “Fish Eye” and hand it to a woman named Lawan. The informant is captured and executed by Waltz while Aiden flees, making his way further into Villedor.
Aiden makes his way to the Bazaar, one of the main settlements in Villedor. Due to Aiden’s lack of a biomarker, a device which tracks the progress of a person’s infection, he is nearly hanged by the Bazaar’s residents but is saved by Hakon, one of the locals. Hakon explains that tensions in Villedor are high due to a Peacekeeper officer, Lucas, having been recently murdered, with the Peacekeepers believing that the survivors of the Bazaar are responsible, risking the outbreak of war between the two factions. Hakon helps Aiden obtain a biomarker and tries to smuggle him into Villedor’s Central district, where the Fish Eye is located. Players can choose to side with either the Bazaar’s leaders, Carl and Sophie or Aitor, an officer of the Peacekeepers. Both of them promise Aiden that they will smuggle him into the Central District as both sides go to war.
Regardless of who Aiden sides with, he discovers that Hakon killed Lucas on Waltz’s orders. Waltz confronts Aiden, demonstrating superhuman abilities as he steals the GRE key from him. Aiden pursues Waltz to an abandoned car factory, where he uses the key to activate a console before Lawan intervenes, incapacitating Waltz long enough for Aiden to recover the key and escape. Lawan reveals that she was also one of Waltz’s test subjects and seeks revenge against him, and that Lucas was murdered by Waltz after originally finding the GRE key. With the key, Aiden and Lawan are able to enter the Central district, where they see electricity suddenly be restored to the city due to Waltz’s use of the key. Aiden then meets with the commander of the Peacekeepers, Jack Matt, and the former leader of the now defunct Nightrunner group, Frank. They both task Aiden with reactivating the radio antenna atop Villedor’s highest skyscraper so that they can broadcast messages to all of Villedor and the settlements beyond, and in return they can help Aiden with finding a surviving GRE doctor so that he can access the GRE database.
After reactivating the tower, Aiden learns that the GRE doctor’s identity is Dr. Veronika Ryan, a Bazaar resident. Aiden returns to the Bazaar and finds Veronika, who is on the run from the Renegades. Together, they head to a GRE facility called the Observatory, where the GRE database is located. After accessing the database, Aiden does not find any information to help his search for Mia, but discovers that Waltz reactivating Villedor’s power plant also reactivated a GRE failsafe protocol calling missile strikes to destroy Villedor. Waltz arrives to take the key, and while fighting him, Aiden loses control of his infection and kills Veronika just as a missile destroys the Observatory and Waltz escapes with the key.
Lawan pulls Aiden from the debris, and he warns her that Waltz’s experiments on him means he will inevitably turn. However, he cannot stop Lawan from going after the leader of the Renegades, Colonel Williams. Williams claims he originally stopped the missile strikes, but Waltz has resumed them and took most of his men with him. Not wanting to see Villedor destroyed, Williams tells Aiden to head for the X13 lab to confront Waltz and stop the missiles. Aiden and Lawan enter the complex and are shocked to find that X13 was supposed to be a survival shelter for GRE officials, with massive stockpiles of supplies. Lawan rescues Hakon after he tries to protect them from Waltz’s Renegades, leaving Aiden to continue alone. As he journeys through X13, he realizes it is the same facility where he was experimented on.
Aiden confronts Waltz, who reveals that Aiden’s memories were incorrect, and that Mia is actually Waltz’s daughter who he has been trying to cure for the past 15 years. Waltz refuses to abort the missile launches, as that would require shutting down X13, whose facilities are necessary to cure Mia, forcing Aiden to battle him. Aiden finally manages to defeat Waltz, who succumbs to his wounds, but the GRE key is destroyed in the fighting. Lawan then tells Aiden she plans to detonate explosives to destroy the missiles before they can launch, which will destroy X13 and possibly herself. Aiden must choose to either try and save Mia, or save Lawan.
- If Aiden goes to save Lawan, he takes her out of X13. However, Aiden fails to stop the missile strike, which destroys Villedor and kills a majority of the population. Aiden then leaves the city due to his infection, continuing his journey as a Pilgrim. Depending on the player’s choices during the game, Hakon may leave the city with him.
- If Aiden goes to save Mia, he takes her out of X13. X13 is destroyed in the explosion and the city is spared from destruction. Mia dies shortly after due to her weakened condition and is buried by Aiden. Meanwhile, Villedor falls under the control of the faction Aiden supported the most. However, Aiden ultimately decides to leave Villedor due to his infection and continues his journey as a Pilgrim. Depending on the player’s choices during the game, Hakon may save Lawan from X13’s destruction and Lawan may leave the city with Aiden.