In real life, I’m not a violent man. I’d even go so far as to say that I’m a bit of a pacifist, though 2025 has really tested the limits of that day after day. It takes a special kind of game to really bring the animal out in me, leaving me to soak in some digital bloodshed with a smile. Dying Light: The Beast is very much that flavor of game.
At this year’s Summer Game Fest, I got 45 minutes of hands-on time with Techland’s latest zombie survival game. I’ve only really experienced the series from a distance until now, so I walked into my demo unsure if its gory combat would hook me. As soon as I beat down an entire room full of monsters with Kyle Crane’s beastly new powers, I felt like I had found the safe outlet for my repressed rage that I’ve really needed all year.
Despite being more of a spinoff, Dying Light: The Beast isn’t so different from Dying Light 2: Stay Human. It takes place in a zombie filled world full of shambling monsters whose flesh can be torn up with barbed wire baseball bats and crowbars. Kyle Crane, the hero of the first Dying Light game, returns here in a revenge story as he tracks down the Baron, a villain who performed some kind of horrible experiment on Crane. That kicks off a quest for blood that features all of Dying Light’s signature features, from rooftop parkour to deadly dropkicks.
The one slight departure from Dying Light 2 is that The Beast leans more into survival horror territory this time. When the sun is out, I can easy get around sporadic patches of zombies who are easily felled by a few good bat bonks or fooled with a decoy grenade. The earliest part of my demo as me treating them like punching bags as I hack through their flesh, skin and blood flying everywhere. That changes when night falls and far more dangerous creatures fill up the streets. I need to go into stealth mode to survive, scrambling up abandoned train cars and hiding in thick forests to avoid getting chased down and beaten to death. Those are the rare moments where I feel powerless. Any other time? I’m the one in control.
Techland goes to great lengths here to make sure that every one of Crane’s weapons just feels morbidly satisfying to use. When I get a bow midway through my demo, I take pleasure in lining up headshots that take out wandering guards with laser precision. Shortly after that, I drop into a dark basement and get to blow through corridors full of zombies with a tremendously powerful shotgun. Even my dropkick is a weapon of mass destruction, sending weak zombies flying. Everything just hits.
That idea gets taken to the next level here thanks to Kyle Crane’s new trick. Due to the experiments inflicted upon him, Crane can now activate beast mode when building up enough power. When activated, it essentially turns him into an unstoppable killing machine for a brief moment. I first get to use it when I fix a fuse box in a basement and find myself trapped in a room with a dozen zombies. I unleash my inner animal, throwing out rapid punches without my stamina bar draining. Seconds later, the undead are back on the floor. It happens in an instant and I’m almost left panting when it’s done. It’s absolutely thrilling.
Everything comes together in the demo’s final boss fight, as I need to take down a hulking flesh monster in a junkyard filled with abandoned cars. I unload every bullet I have into it while dodging away from its charging attacks at the last second. I get to use another lethal tool there: a flamethrower that chars its skin until it looks like a well-done steak. It gets desperate in its second phase, grabbing hold of a shambling zombie and tossing it at me. I dodge, get some final shots in, and eventually tear my foes head clean off. It feels like I’ve just watched a battle between lions in the jungle, and I’m the one left with blood in my jaws.
If bloodshed isn’t your thing, there’s a lot more to The Beast than its sheer brutality. I’m especially impressed by the environmental design here, a parkour playground that sends me running around densely detailed rooftops. One puzzle segment has me climbing my way up an abandoned water tower, pushing me to observe the intricate design to find loose pipes I can mantle up with the right timing. It all makes for a world full of pathways that feel like they exist naturally in the world, rather than heavily signposted platforming gauntlets.
I’m sure I’ll appreciate that even more in the final game, but I mostly look forward to swinging that baseball bat again and watching it cave in a zombie’s face. It’s grotesque, but I can be grotesque when a game is this good at turning me into a depraved little monster.
Dying Light: The Beast launches on August 22 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
