@@blackreign673 Hurts my soul! Christmas I wanted to buy some for my wife and thought of skillup and his code! was so disappointed when you couldn't get in Australia... ordered apple ones...
I think a large part of what makes Spiderman, and likely Dying Light 2, feel fresh even with a tired archetype (open world action game with lots of map markers designating copy and past activities) is that it's traversal mechanics are enjoyable. The thing you spend tons of time doing is fun and isn't just holding forward while rotating a camera.
I say that is a good thing. Fun factor/gameplay loop first, story (and graphics) second. The point of video games to me is the fun factor. If I wanted a story I usually would just play a VN, watch a movie/show, or a game that is story focused. I usually turn off my brain anyways when it comes to the story and pay more attention to gameplay loop. But not to say I completely ignore the characters personalities or what they did during the game.
Holding forward while rotating camera can be fun too, remeber God of war boat stories they were soo interesting that sometimes I would just keep the boat away from shore to listen to them So excellent writing too can make traversal fun
Can we give some appreciation for Austin?! Let him know that we acknowledge him for all his hard work and for the beginning of this hectic month in gaming reviews just starting.
Techland also said they would be supporting the game for the next 5 years, and they are one of the very few dev studios that I would believe when it comes to long term commitments to updating a game. They supported Dying Light 1 until just recently.
That was one of the reasons why i stopped supporting them, it was a double edged blade for me. They chose to continue to support DL1 instead of making their new IP wich they cancelled in 2015, wich was a dagger in the heart for my and my friends/community. I hope people get to have fun with DL2 though, we can't all enjoy the same things
@@crimson5142 He's talking about Hellraid. That fantasy horde mode DLC in DL1? That was meant to be full game. Basically Dark Messiah of Might and Magic but in open world.
13:15 "Some of them look like real people". That's David Belle. He is a real person. He's the dude that invented parkour and was an advisor for the parkour in the game.
Progressing from barely being able to hop roof to roof to becoming Spider-Man in DL1 was one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time, and I’m unbelievably happy that I get to relive that again.
I was always ambivalent about the hook. On the one side it makes for some sick moves, on the other hand it trivialize some of the more interesting movement obstacles of the game.
@@dummyforcummy5223 I’m gonna tell you rn, the lack of stamina you have at the start of this game is BRUTAL. You’ll find you can barely climb to the roof of a small building without almost plummeting to your death
Honestly, as someone who's played way to much of the first Dying Light (as well as Dead Island and Dead Island Riptide), I wasn't expecting the story to be anything special. The gameplay is the reason I played so much of those games. From the sounds of it, that's how it's going to go down this time as well and I'm ready for it.
Yeah, I remember basically nothing about the story of DL1 that techland made, but I remember MY story. I know its cliche, but techland knows how to make a canvas for the player, and it looks like DL2 is even better for that.
I'm in the same boat - the story is just there as a justification to smash zombies with a sledgehammer. I'll definitely be picking it up but I might wait a few months for patches/sales.
The first game wasn't really in my list of mind-blowing stories but it was engaging and serviceable, so I'm not expecting anything super amazing in that department, but everything else surrounding the game is top tier for me. This sequel seems to continue that trend and I'll definitely be checking it out, thanks for the review!
Traversal and world design really make a huge impact on open world games. It was fun as hell to swing around in Spider-Man and Ghost of Tsushima is so gorgeous that I didn't mind riding from place to place without constantly using fast travel. Seems like Dying Light 2 nails that part of it.
Reviews are all over the place for this one, from a 9.5 at Game Informer to a 6 at GameSpot. Glad to finally have the review out that I will trust the most.
The game has less than 80 on metacritic, it's crazy how these last years I don't agree at all anymore with most professional website reviews. There is so much game at 85/86 metacritic that I absolutely loved, but other at 93 metacritic that I found so boring and bland. Personnaly now i don't even bother to read reviews from websites like IGN anymore, if i watch a review it's from guys I've always agreed with like Skill Up
Your reviews have been extremely great and helpful for me lately when it comes to choosing what games to give my time. You’re always consistent and you never bullshit or blow smoke. Keep up the awesome work man!
@@mattjudy6780 I liked seeing the rats but most of the rest of the game consisted of bog standard stealth sections. I love actual stealth games, I don't like stealth in games when it's not worked out at all. It was talked about like it did daring and innovative things but I didn't see any of that. (Besides the cool rats!)
@@807D14M0ND5 yeah I wouldn't say it reinvented stealth by any means. But I loved it, especially the story! Everyone I know who played it did as well. Mainly the story as you said nothing else about it was revolutionary. But a good game doesn't always have to be. Cheers!
How is "I like these systems in games and want to see if these games have them" an echo chamber? It's ensuring you're going to enjoy a product before buying it, not an evhochamber. An echochamber validates not your opinions, reviews inform them. Get your shit right.
The bit about the characters between the 3 and 4 minute marks is something I had thought of for quite a while in games but never heard put into words, so many characters can be written with nice dialogue or animations but fall very short of seeming alive, like puppets. Very apt analysis of these types of characters that I'll take with me now!
As someone who works in game development, thank you Ralph for doing all that you do to produce these reviews. We appreciate your thoughtfulness, insight, and details. Game dev is hard and takes a chunk out of one's life per iteration, and your informative videos are an important resource for us stay abreast of the macro as we keep ourselves buried in the micro. I think it's safe to say you are a game dev's game reviewer.
What I'm hearing is that DL2 looks plays fantastically, even though the story is kinda eh. As someone who is a huge fan of DL1 and was able to get through Fallout 4's dogsh*t story still liking the game, I'll probably love this.
Honestly if you’re a huge fan of DL1 (As I am as well), I can’t imagine not possibly enjoying the sequel. It pretty much looks like a refinement of all the core elements of the first one, so I myself am expecting to enjoy this as much, if not more :)
Recommend me the same drugs you used to get through FO4 while still enjoying it. Absolutely trash game from top to bottom. Its only redeeming feature was the gunplay that done away with the RPG combat systems popularly used at the time in games like Dues Ex, Morrowind and FO3.
I still remember the first time I was caught outside at night in Dying Light 1. I may have pooped myself a bit. 😜 can’t wait to play this! One of the best studios out there!
I thinkk you will be very disapointed : they removed the stress of getting out at night. You can roam all you want, Volatile won't hunt you unless you start choping zombie on street level. A very, very dumb decision.
@@FabulousFab72 agreed. The first game was really tense at night. They did a worse job in the sequel. Improved parkour is the best thing about the sequel. Otherwise the first game is better imo.
Skill Up I'm so happy for you how much your channel as grown. As far goes for game reviews your the first person I go to. You are open and honest and don't sugar coat anything. The amount of passion that's put into your reviews is amazing. Ty and keep up the good work buddy!
Fucking love David Belle’s cameo. That is just an absolutely fantastic addition, and he deserves it, being sort of the “father” of Parkour and helping shape the Parkour in the first game (probably this one, too).
For how much story Techland has put into both Dying Light games, I wish they would hire better writers. The first one tried so hard to tug at emotional strings, but it was so manufactured and hollow. Glad to see the game looks worthwhile though. I'll wait for the bugs to be ironed out before I pick it up.
I'm with you I watched IGN's first 23 minutes video of the game and it just felt and looked beautiful the way it reflected and built the world up of this apocalypse. It felt so human with the way they walked around the previous owner's homes. Imagine if you got The Last of Us writing but with the gameplay and action. God that would be game of the decade.
I found a lot of the side missions in Dying Light 1 to be more engaging than the main questline. Was that the case in your experience as well or were most narratives a mess?
It’s also quite challenging and tense. I’m old and play games on easy nowadays as I don’t have patience for hard games anymore, and find it a fair fun challenge even on easy. My only problem with the game is the amount of “cutscenes” where it takes the controller away from me is way too much, they go on too long. Hoping that gets better later in the game.
@@chasescooper if you dont use it you loose it. By not challenging yourself do you not worry you will have a reduced capacity to respond to challenges?
After collecting all 35+ DLCs and playing roughly 800hrs in DL1 I'm finally ready for sequel to dive in. I never expected an awesome storytelling from Techland so I wont be dissapointed at least, they're masters of different fields and I know they will deliver on that. Hell I would be happy if they just give a DL1 new map and new story, so a new game is a treat
Any game that looks like the devs poured their hearts and souls to it, usually is a fun game to play. ❤ dont necessarily have to be the best games ever. But when it looks like the people who made it care, you tend to care too
I loved Techland and their games a lot, but the way they treated Chris Avellone, makes them look bad. Not sincere independent people who lovingly worked on their project as it's their child. Do they really care now, or are they full of shit as many great in the past companies became?
Same with Rainbow Six Extraction, it's really well polished yet the community around(those who never played it), somehow, hates it. Shill up also said he hated it. I honestly love it as much as I love Deep Rock Galactic and pve games like payday 2
@@yaago eh, extraction has a lot of issues with it's loop, but it's still solid, the r6 community is mad at it bc they still haven't done better about cheaters on pc and consol with zim and auto recoil. But pushed out a new ip instead while skins cost over $20.
@@Demonmatamon He said Cyberpunk was phenomenal if you B-line the story, describing it as a tour of North Korea, where walking off the path shows the lack of immersion. Cyberpunk is a fine game, at least this one comes with basic features lol
Never played the first game for the story, the gameplay is what hooked me. So I don’t care about the story being mid and poorly paced. If the gameplay is solid and the open world is good I’ll get my money’s worth👍
For anyone watching this a year+ later and is curious about performance: Don't use raytracing reflections. It is nearly solely responsible for the lower frames. Leave it on high or low (the difference is minimal) and the game runs very well.
When I was reading other people's reviews I had this vibe that most people are going to find this game okay but I'm personally going to love it immensely. Hearing you say something of the sort in this video was quite encouraging and I'm hoping that comes true for me when I play it tonight. Thanks SkillUp and Austin for your great work. EDIT: It did. I love Dying Light 2 :) EDIT 2: Midgame, I want to say that Combat is so much more interesting and tactical than it felt in Dying Light 1, and I can say that because I replayed the first game just three days before DL2 released. The way I can really spec into my preferred character archetype (read my name lol) and just _weave_ Throwing Knives in between strikes from my main weapon, jump over and through enemies, use the environment to just suppress swarms of enemies before they ever touch me, it's wild.
As long as the combat wasn't the main draw to dying light I'm sure you'll like it. The combat feels way less weighty but so far that's the biggest problem I have with the gameplay.
Picked up the first one in the latest steam sale and enjoyed the ~25-30hrs I got out of it. Definitely a lot of issues with design choices (and clear development restrictions, like having 3 faces copied and pasted over all the NPC's). DL2 looks like an expansion and refinement of the first one, albeit with some similiar issues the first one had. Definitely going to look at picking it up.
I played the first for 200 hours and loved every moment of it. This one looks to be a big step up and I'm so excited. In fact when I get home from work later I'll be able to change my xbox location to new Zealand and hop on
From the sounds of it from your impressions on the plot and writing, Techland just sorta failed to get something good together after they fired Chris Avellone from the project. I imagine before he was slapped with those allegations that they were letting him do most of the heavy lifting when it came to writing and had to scramble to get something together when needing to rewrite it later.
A replacement who evidently wasnt worth the money. Maybe shouldnt hot shot themselves, and their customers, in the foot over what someone else *potentially* done.
@@lilliefluff if he was that insignificant why was he doing the presentation at the reveal ? why even fire him to begin with if he is so insignificant ?
@@Senumunu he was doing the presentation because he's a famous writer, he was meant to be a selling point and a marketing thing, and he was fired because I'd assume and hope that any employee with serious sexual harassment accusations and no valid defence would be?
I love the game. I just wish like the first one there was a way to repair weapons. I know there is the developer thing but I mean an actual vendor in game for repairs. That aside the NPC'S are very interesting and well written, with subjects like Dementia and Anxiety suffering broached in game. Big Kudos Techland for making humans characters that are relatable.
Waiting on this review all week to the surprise of it going live at the end of my shift!! Been hearing a lot of things both good and bad about Dying Light 2, but interested to see what SkillUp has to share with us!
Man, 2022 is a stacked year for gaming. I imagine that it'll be a repeat of 2018 where all eyes are going to be on Elden Ring and Ragnarok while games like Dying Light 2 earns less attention even though it's a good game in its own right.
Dang man, i was waiting this review as much as i was waiting for the game, i'm kinda new to the channel but in the last month i watched pretty much every review you made, there's much effort put into them and i can't get enough of them even when i don't agree with what you say
Played between 6-10 hours everyday since launch. Dying Light is my favorite game this gen and Dying Light 2 has turned out amazing even on day one release. Techland will now spend the next 5 years or more patching and adding content, just as they have with the first Dying Light, I really cannot wait to see this world expand even more. Thank you Techland 10/10 from me
Just wanted to say bro, hearing the 1st "gamers" of 2022, it lit up my life a little bit. Keep up the great work! Can't wait to hear what ya say about Witch Queen.
there’s something called dark zones in this game and i’ll tell you what if you get caught in one when the sun comes up it’ll be the most terrifying thing you’ve experienced
@@Tissuestrash I tried doing one at level 1 and let me tell you, frustrating, stressful and thrilling all at once. Using up all my damn mushies while trying to stealth around the zambies only to find the room with the Inhibitors is locked behind a medium lock pick challenge, a challenge that if you undertake, you will be undertaking in a room with about 15 zombies, some sleeping, about 3 walking around. and they WILL see you. I managed by opening a Dark Zone shortcut to the entrance (where the UV is) so I could aggressively clear out the zambies and then retreat when my immunity was too low, rinse, repeat, finally I got the lock open (but not before sunrise) and took everything then bolted outta there. Damn, that's gameplay right there.
@@Tissuestrash They only send virals that are easy to kill, the only time the game forced me to go in the dark zones at night was in GRE zones. Where did all the volatiles go? I've completed the game and seen them like 3 times. Never even used stealth. Game needs a harder difficulty in my opinion.
Can I just point out the unbelievable integrity on display here? Right around 9:20 Skill-Up points out that he is specifically reviewing the PC experience here and that he cant vouch for bugs and issues console players may have and recommends they seek out OTHER reviews that cover that. I cant think of another journalist , let alone a gaming one that would tell his own viewers to seek out second opinions so they can make the best informed choices for themselves. I know it seems like a small thing, but to me it's that kind of honesty that has my utmost respect. And why even though I may not always agree with Ralph's opinions 100% (nor do I think he would expect me too), I always enjoy these incredibly high quality and in-depth reviews and the consistently valuable perspective provided. Nowhere else in the gaming space do I feel so respected as a viewer.
This game is a surprise hit for me. I almost wrote it off even having played and enjoyed the first game. Reason being is my anticipation for Horizon 2 and Elden Ring. Now I'm over 100 hours in and wondering if I'm gonna be able to pull myself away to kill robo dinos for 1 week before getting my SoulsBorne on for the foreseeable future. Dying Light 2 is just fun, fun, fun.
As someone who loved Dying Light 1, this makes me even more hyped for 2. Dying Light 1’s story had it’s dramatic moments but much of the game and the world came from also doing those side quests. It was awkward, had pacing issues, but it was so endearing. This sounds to be a bit like that, and about what I expected really. The movement, combat, detailed world, and overall vibe of what Dying Light is is what I’m going for here and this is exactly what I was expecting. It’s never reallt been known for it’s story, but if you run around that world there is always something to explore and find that makes it feel so alive. And the support for 1 was almost unheard of qith expansions, updates, events, and content coming up until this week, almost 7 years after release. Def excited for this one. I think you nailed it. 1 always felt like a passion project, and I’m glad 2 has that same feel. And we’re at least getting a stable game, on release for a change, which says a lot about the industry as a whole.
You really have to play Dying Light 1 still. It seems to me, that it has less of a story focus, but the open world environments are amazing, with some missions playing in the open world, others are linear and well paced. I loved every minute of it!
Definitely worth playing the first game. They literally spent 7 years fine tuning every aspect of the game and adding completely new content. In fact I’d say it’s even worth replaying if you haven’t played it since it’s release. It’s a completely different game compared to the launch version.
@@oh-not-the-bees7872 Can't agree or disagree because I didn't play the 2nd game, so: No I don't think you're right. Zombie population seems less dense, no guns, and a different scenario overall. This doesn't mean the 2nd game is worse, but they are different enough to experience both.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to run an action game like this in 4k at 40fps instead of 1440p at 144 fps. Vsually you can barely tell the difference of having more pixles.
I’m really excited for this one. Techland has my trust after how well they supported the first game. They really took the time to make it something special and kept adding things, even up to this year
It's crazy to think back to your Division days, cause that's how I discovered your channel. Still hold much love for that game and a lot of appreciation for your videos.
i've only shared recorded clips directly from my PS4 twice. Once when Assassin's Creed: Unity was glitching me through floors, and once when Dying Light 1's Co-Op was allowing me and my best bud to land some amazing parkour assisted zombie stomps. I'm looking forward to bringing back those moments in the new one on PC now.
Great review as usual. In depth, to the point and cover everything that a a buyer need. Btw Techland said that the day 1 patch has over 1000 fixes so I wouldn't be concerned about the bugs and even Dying Light 1 had some at launch but they were patched super quick, so I have faith in the devs!
8 days in and I still can't progress in the story, if you activate a water tower before a certain story mission you won't be able to progress anymore, just look up Sophie stuck dying light 2.
Dude, your reviews are always just amazing and really dive deep. Thanks a lot for all the great work you put into them it is much appreciated. Still, monster hunter world review is one of my favorites.
My friend and I played through all of Dying Light 1 with co-op, so with the gameplay being as fun as you've described, I can't wait for us to play again at midnight tonight. Great Video Ralph!
Having followed their production, I am not surprised. - I kept saying that they would probably deliver because they were just keeping quiet and putting their heads down. Well, there you have it...
Honestly the story and characters seem very similar to the first game. Loved the first game still so I'm hoping if the combat and parkour are fresh then I'll love this one as well.
Dying Light was a great game. My favorite part was the Be the Zombie mode. Playing as/against a player-controlled Night Hunter was extremely fun. Hope something like that shows up here.
thats the first thing I turned off....Garbage players who play like bitches and the instant you get close to killing them they try the run away and hide garbage.
On few channels will I like a video before watching it--this is one of them. I have so much trust in SkillUp (that includes Austin!) that I know it'll be good no matter what it is.
You should give this game another try if you haven’t recently. I know you already liked it but it’s gotten way better since release and they just had another big update which included changes to the cutscenes to make them more lively and a harder difficulty. They’ve also updated the combat and world a ton since release so everything feels and looks even better now
Small note on the combat, I like the fact that the opponent at 23:41 feinted an attack, which if it's an actual thing they do regularly that immediately makes combat a lot more engaging. Glad to see that
Really enjoyed the review and I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy the game as well. One thing I want to point out though. In the parkour segment you state that Assassin's Creed was really the only parkour based game for a long time, but Mirror's Edge actually released just a year after the first Assassin's Creed. In terms of direct inspirations, it's that little gem of a game that is most recognizable in Dying Light. It's successor was a disappointment so I'm delighted Dying Light exists to give me my Mirror's Edge-like fix.
I agree with you and I would also throw in Dishonored as well. As a diehard assassin’s creed stan I will say that Dying Light is more like Mirror’s Edge and Dishonored before Assassin’s Creed.
@@kjj26k I wouldn't say the first Mirror's Edge had loads of combat, except towards the very end of the game. Regrettably so, as it was easily the worst part of the game. Until that point, it was more or less avoidable. Anyway, to the other poster, to each their own I guess. I loved the original Mirror's Edge to bits, but I can understand it's not for everyone.
I only have a switch now I don’t even play the games you review but the quality of each video keeps me coming back. Bravo to everyone involved in making these videos. Absolutely top of the line!
If I had money I'd buy it. BUT I literally have all my gaming budget of the year on Elden Ring and future DLC. Great job! God help Austin, cuz all this content and news and acquisitions and releases are just the start of this year in videogames.
@@Xinlongsai I am astonished about how idiotic people are being about me not *wanting* (it's a choice, I have a billion hobbies, some expensive) to spend more money on videogames. Seriously though, you have more money than me but you can't afford some politeness?
I am genuinely curious how you prepare yourself to invest so much time into these games, and go in - and come out - with such a seemingly unbiased and positive take. I have seen so many game reviewers start out like that, but always end up bitter, impatient, and/or unmotivated. Not only are you so charismatic about your reviews, you seem to have such an outside-looking-in perspective that I can never do myself, like your general awareness about the act you are doing while you are doing it is impressive I guess. I dont mean to gas you up lol, you are just so damn good at what you do. Surely you can't play these games for so many hours on end to push these reviews out, and not get frustrated in ways that affect your review, but I am always proved wrong because you always seem so fair. GG. You were meant for this.
As a huge fan of the first game I can tell you that the storyline takes a huge side seat to the moment to moment action. Fans of Dying Light didn't come to the first game for its story. The story was an excused to kill zombies have fun with the parkour and the moment to moment action that the game offered. I completed Dying Light 1 storyline five times. I knew the missions like the back of my hand but I was mainly there to max out my character's legendary rank. It would be nice for players like me to be able to experience the story differently every time I go through it and to have different effects on the game environment based on the choices you make thank you for your review.
Story: I’ll admit the story/side quest are really good! Bugs: From my gameplay, I have experienced no game breaking bugs! The only bugs I have seen were visual bugs here and there. Parkour: Smooth! Combat: A little wonky but its not bad!
Since the parkour is so highly praised, it's worth pointing out that David Belle plays and was the character model for Hakon. Who tf is David Belle one may ask... he's only the dude that INVENTED the actual physical discipline of Parkour. If you've seen the 2004 French action thriller "District B13", you've seen this mad man in action. Thought that was a really cool touch on the part of Techland.
12:30 immediately after praising the details that were being preserved despite the draw distance, we see skyrim style cardboard trees, with no shadows. So that's how they "pulled this off". It usually works for buildings.
As always SkillUp you have a really nuanced opinion of your experience, and are able to so clearly lay out all the best and worst features of a game. I'm not sure I'll be picking this one up but a great review nonetheless
I love this review so much. I never played the first one but was curious... I have answers to all my questions. Going to put this on the shortlist for the parkour, while continuing to nurse my Destiny 2 addiction. Thanks for the detail as always!
I bought the $100 version. Played for about 40 minutes. The black guy that you first meet says he’s leaving. And then he stays around. It’s not even 10 minutes in. I mean how does that even make sense? He said he was going to leave and he’s still there. First 10 minutes? Does this bode well for the rest of the game. Was not happy the beginning doesn’t allow me to make that jump. Not into QuickTime events like that or rather movie set pieces. 499 hours and 20 minutes to go!
"Something went wrong with it's narrative departament" Yeah that is gonna happen when you fire your narrative director years into development and erase everything he wrote for this game. Dying Light 2 was revealed by its narrative director Chris Avellone with the team touting how they would focus on revolutionary narrative design it was the only reason I was interested in this game and despite all that happened with Avellone's firing I still held out hope the game could deliver on story, now I know I dont need to bother, really disappointing.
Dying Light 1 didn't have a great story either but it turned out to be on eof my favourite games of all time, the gameplay and level design was just that good.
I'm a little disappointed in the lack of special infected appearances in open-world gameplay. The only way to get most of them to come out is usually through chases. The nighttime gameplay in this game isn't as intense as the first game was. Volatiles are hardly even in the game aside from a couple story missions. they really needed to have more special infected roam the streets/roofs of the open world. I've gone through the whole game without seeing a banshee besides from the intro. I thought they would stalk the roofs at night but I haven't seen any besides through chases.
You just can't really play the game at night in the first game, so I much prefer the less intensity. I agree that the lack of special infected is disappointing, but night is overall way improved.
13:30 that's actually a shader issue, specifically with umbra rendering. You should be able to mess around with the shadow quality settings to mitigate it.
Not sure why you recommended this game. I believed in you and now I feel like I've wasted my money. This game has terrible narrative pacing, unsatisfying combat and character progression, and the traversal is buggy as hell. And it doesn't even look that good with ray-tracing on. The developers just copy-pasted the same thing all over the map. And I could care less about the characters. It's such an unlikable game. Can you please be more careful with your reviews? You recommended The Ascent too and that was a pretty terrible game as well. Both suffer from indie dev inexperience when it comes to the underlying systems. Don't even look at graphics when it comes to indie games. I think people are hyped when they see a small team make something that looks like a AAA game, but the game systems are so out of whack because all they did was focus on making the game look good. You wouldn't want to play this game for 40 hrs let alone 500. $40 game at best. Buy it on sale.
Worth mentioning - Techland's long term technical support and content support for Dying Light was (and still is) excellent. So while it might take a while for all the bugs to get squashed, I have no doubt they will be fixed. I'll be waiting a bit, but I'm definitely getting this game eventually.
Love Skill up. Great review, the only one I ever care about. I know this represents the best grasp of what DL2 is likely to offer. keep doing what you do lads.
Its amazing how Skill Up, a one man show, manage to pump out review after review compared to AngryJoe with his two entourage that review 1 game a month, 2 if they feel like it.
Go to buyraycon.com/skillup for 15% off your order! Brought to you by Raycon.
Raycon that we cannot get in australia :(
seriously raycons are awesome. I've had them for over a year now and they have been the most bang for your buck ear buds I've ever put in my ears
@@blackreign673 Hurts my soul! Christmas I wanted to buy some for my wife and thought of skillup and his code! was so disappointed when you couldn't get in Australia... ordered apple ones...
@@enesis5472 sucks man sorry to hear that!
I am going to get these raycons thanks Ralph your a legend.
Props to you on spending 500 hours just to make this review
The dedication of a man spending his entire life just to review a game
This man reviews live service games. I'm pretty sure there are donkeys jealous of his endurance.
@@kitsamkit2346 Lmao. Thousands of pros spend at least 10h per day, more often 18-ish. Gaming is the easiest activity ever, hardly awe-worthy.
I bet he spent like 5 hours on it.
@@ChessJourneyman why don't you make a review then?
I think a large part of what makes Spiderman, and likely Dying Light 2, feel fresh even with a tired archetype (open world action game with lots of map markers designating copy and past activities) is that it's traversal mechanics are enjoyable. The thing you spend tons of time doing is fun and isn't just holding forward while rotating a camera.
I say that is a good thing. Fun factor/gameplay loop first, story (and graphics) second. The point of video games to me is the fun factor. If I wanted a story I usually would just play a VN, watch a movie/show, or a game that is story focused. I usually turn off my brain anyways when it comes to the story and pay more attention to gameplay loop. But not to say I completely ignore the characters personalities or what they did during the game.
Along with really fun traversal, Spider-man also has excellent combat as well as a really great story and characters
I couldn’t believe the mirror’s edge spiritual successor would be a game from dead island developer
That's the reason why a love Death Stranding
Holding forward while rotating camera can be fun too, remeber God of war boat stories they were soo interesting that sometimes I would just keep the boat away from shore to listen to them
So excellent writing too can make traversal fun
Can we give some appreciation for Austin?! Let him know that we acknowledge him for all his hard work and for the beginning of this hectic month in gaming reviews just starting.
No, all praise must go to me. It's in Austin's contract.
@@SkillUp Poor Austin 😂
I read that as Autism
@@SkillUp unfair dinkum
@@SkillUp All Praise our Glorious Lord and Savior, Shill Up
Techland also said they would be supporting the game for the next 5 years, and they are one of the very few dev studios that I would believe when it comes to long term commitments to updating a game. They supported Dying Light 1 until just recently.
7 years of support was good enough
That was one of the reasons why i stopped supporting them, it was a double edged blade for me. They chose to continue to support DL1 instead of making their new IP wich they cancelled in 2015, wich was a dagger in the heart for my and my friends/community. I hope people get to have fun with DL2 though, we can't all enjoy the same things
@@JoakimFigge if your talking about dead island 2 they dont have the rights to it
@@crimson5142 He's talking about Hellraid. That fantasy horde mode DLC in DL1? That was meant to be full game. Basically Dark Messiah of Might and Magic but in open world.
@@crimson5142 No I was refering to Hellraid, wich they later made a mini game of sorts in DL1
13:15 "Some of them look like real people". That's David Belle. He is a real person. He's the dude that invented parkour and was an advisor for the parkour in the game.
With how the story was in the first game I wasn’t really expecting much from its story, glad to know the gameplay is still top tier at least
Honestly I was kinda hoping they'd improve upon the story. I'm a little disappointed to hear it's more of the same as far as story quality goes.
Yeah that 1st story was also pretty just alright
I barely remember the first story
@@generaljim9857 yeah, it was super generic. I thought they said they were gonna improve that part. Kinda disappointed.
True, games like these are expected to have better gameplay than story
"The parkour only gets better and better as you play" Exactly how the first game was, so stoked
Progressing from barely being able to hop roof to roof to becoming Spider-Man in DL1 was one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time, and I’m unbelievably happy that I get to relive that again.
@@dummyforcummy5223, I remember first getting the grappling hook in DL1 and how amazingly different that changed my tactics and strategy.
@@angelsofblood9879 Grappling hook is absolutely the number one game changer in DL1.
I was always ambivalent about the hook. On the one side it makes for some sick moves, on the other hand it trivialize some of the more interesting movement obstacles of the game.
@@dummyforcummy5223 I’m gonna tell you rn, the lack of stamina you have at the start of this game is BRUTAL. You’ll find you can barely climb to the roof of a small building without almost plummeting to your death
Honestly, as someone who's played way to much of the first Dying Light (as well as Dead Island and Dead Island Riptide), I wasn't expecting the story to be anything special. The gameplay is the reason I played so much of those games. From the sounds of it, that's how it's going to go down this time as well and I'm ready for it.
Yeah, I remember basically nothing about the story of DL1 that techland made, but I remember MY story. I know its cliche, but techland knows how to make a canvas for the player, and it looks like DL2 is even better for that.
Yeah, people who played so much of DL1 don't care for the story. We'll loot gauze over and over again, the game is that fun
I'm in the same boat - the story is just there as a justification to smash zombies with a sledgehammer. I'll definitely be picking it up but I might wait a few months for patches/sales.
@@imravegod did your dad just hit you or something? Who are you crying to?
@@imravegod Yeah, it's almost like different people had different opinions or something.
The first game wasn't really in my list of mind-blowing stories but it was engaging and serviceable, so I'm not expecting anything super amazing in that department, but everything else surrounding the game is top tier for me. This sequel seems to continue that trend and I'll definitely be checking it out, thanks for the review!
Story was the only bad part of DL1 imo.
@@NotCharAznable I thought it was awesome. It's no worse than basically any Rambo movie lmao.
@@casthedemon Rambo 1 is a masterpiece mate
@@Toku91 yeah exactly.
Traversal and world design really make a huge impact on open world games. It was fun as hell to swing around in Spider-Man and Ghost of Tsushima is so gorgeous that I didn't mind riding from place to place without constantly using fast travel. Seems like Dying Light 2 nails that part of it.
Reviews are all over the place for this one, from a 9.5 at Game Informer to a 6 at GameSpot. Glad to finally have the review out that I will trust the most.
The game has less than 80 on metacritic, it's crazy how these last years I don't agree at all anymore with most professional website reviews. There is so much game at 85/86 metacritic that I absolutely loved, but other at 93 metacritic that I found so boring and bland. Personnaly now i don't even bother to read reviews from websites like IGN anymore, if i watch a review it's from guys I've always agreed with like Skill Up
And Skill Up didn't like Deathloop which was a fantastic game so I don't know who to trust.
@yuki mukasa battlefield 2042 is a 3 at this point right now
@@Lobanium everything is subjective. Not everyone is going to like the same thing. That’s why you gotta trust yourself to figure out what you like.
@Loban I mean that's just his opinion that's all a review is
Your reviews have been extremely great and helpful for me lately when it comes to choosing what games to give my time. You’re always consistent and you never bullshit or blow smoke. Keep up the awesome work man!
I believe him mostly but don't agree with him at all sometimes. His plague tale innocence review remains a mystery to me. (His praise)
@@807D14M0ND5 you didn't like plague tale?
@@807D14M0ND5 Plague Tale is a great game.
@@mattjudy6780 I liked seeing the rats but most of the rest of the game consisted of bog standard stealth sections. I love actual stealth games, I don't like stealth in games when it's not worked out at all. It was talked about like it did daring and innovative things but I didn't see any of that. (Besides the cool rats!)
@@807D14M0ND5 yeah I wouldn't say it reinvented stealth by any means. But I loved it, especially the story! Everyone I know who played it did as well. Mainly the story as you said nothing else about it was revolutionary. But a good game doesn't always have to be. Cheers!
Its nice to find a reviewer that has the same criterion for games as I do.
I agree
He’s the best, honestly 🙌
So, you were looking for an echo chamber to validate your opinions?
@@Ecliptor. L
How is "I like these systems in games and want to see if these games have them" an echo chamber? It's ensuring you're going to enjoy a product before buying it, not an evhochamber. An echochamber validates not your opinions, reviews inform them. Get your shit right.
The bit about the characters between the 3 and 4 minute marks is something I had thought of for quite a while in games but never heard put into words, so many characters can be written with nice dialogue or animations but fall very short of seeming alive, like puppets. Very apt analysis of these types of characters that I'll take with me now!
As someone who works in game development, thank you Ralph for doing all that you do to produce these reviews. We appreciate your thoughtfulness, insight, and details. Game dev is hard and takes a chunk out of one's life per iteration, and your informative videos are an important resource for us stay abreast of the macro as we keep ourselves buried in the micro. I think it's safe to say you are a game dev's game reviewer.
Lol nonsense u speak
@@thegamingda7404 howz that nonsense
@@zagreus4866 dying light 2 is a broken game its anti consumer to say otherwise , since cyberpunk folk can see threw these fake reviews
If its a game dev review why not mention the issues of the broke parts ?
@@thegamingda7404 20 IQ take here....move along
This intro is so fleshed out it could be its own flash review in a blogpost. Love the writing and editing. Shoutout to Ralph and Austin.
What I'm hearing is that DL2 looks plays fantastically, even though the story is kinda eh. As someone who is a huge fan of DL1 and was able to get through Fallout 4's dogsh*t story still liking the game, I'll probably love this.
Honestly if you’re a huge fan of DL1 (As I am as well), I can’t imagine not possibly enjoying the sequel. It pretty much looks like a refinement of all the core elements of the first one, so I myself am expecting to enjoy this as much, if not more :)
Fallout 4 had one of the least compelling stories in a major RPG in recent memory.
FO4 had a much better "story" than DL though. Not even comparable. At least FO4 tried.
Recommend me the same drugs you used to get through FO4 while still enjoying it.
Absolutely trash game from top to bottom. Its only redeeming feature was the gunplay that done away with the RPG combat systems popularly used at the time in games like Dues Ex, Morrowind and FO3.
I’m a huge fan of dying light too and my biggest fear is that the parkour system seems floaty. I just hope it’s just an impression
Amazingly fun gameplay? Flat story and characters? A little buggy?
Yep. That’s dying light. Looking forward to playing in a few months.
Dying light is like a high quality B movie and I wouldn’t have it any other way
Sounds like why I love techland games. Also I'm sure you'll be delighted to hear the ridiculously overpowered drop kick makes a return
@@JudeTheTH-camPoopersubscribe I remember when hypermode was in Dying Light 1.
@@JudeTheTH-camPoopersubscribe I’ve missed drop kicking zombies off of rooftops
@@lightkeeper1238 even without hypermode enemies still go flying in this one haha.
I still remember the first time I was caught outside at night in Dying Light 1. I may have pooped myself a bit. 😜 can’t wait to play this! One of the best studios out there!
you sir are a fraud. You worry too much.
I thinkk you will be very disapointed : they removed the stress of getting out at night. You can roam all you want, Volatile won't hunt you unless you start choping zombie on street level.
A very, very dumb decision.
@@FabulousFab72 agreed. The first game was really tense at night. They did a worse job in the sequel. Improved parkour is the best thing about the sequel. Otherwise the first game is better imo.
Skill Up I'm so happy for you how much your channel as grown. As far goes for game reviews your the first person I go to. You are open and honest and don't sugar coat anything. The amount of passion that's put into your reviews is amazing. Ty and keep up the good work buddy!
Fucking love David Belle’s cameo. That is just an absolutely fantastic addition, and he deserves it, being sort of the “father” of Parkour and helping shape the Parkour in the first game (probably this one, too).
I remember training parkour religiously as a teenager, and he was our Michael Jordan. Good memories
This is what Assassin's Creed should've become but third person
@@matheusg1473 Definitely! I did a lot of training too. I’m even trying to get back into it, if only a little because it’s such great exercise!
@@jamesb7205 Well if everyone didn't shit on unity we would have more games that were like it, but Ubisoft saw the hate and moved directions...
For how much story Techland has put into both Dying Light games, I wish they would hire better writers. The first one tried so hard to tug at emotional strings, but it was so manufactured and hollow. Glad to see the game looks worthwhile though. I'll wait for the bugs to be ironed out before I pick it up.
They did hire one, one REALLY good one, the guy who worked on New Vegas, then his drunk texts were leaked and he was let go.
I'm with you I watched IGN's first 23 minutes video of the game and it just felt and looked beautiful the way it reflected and built the world up of this apocalypse. It felt so human with the way they walked around the previous owner's homes.
Imagine if you got The Last of Us writing but with the gameplay and action. God that would be game of the decade.
It wasn't Avellone's texts that got him fired, it was two lying thots that made false accusations.
@@sonfoku73 yeah from the first game not the second one. The story in the second one is dumb.
@@sonfoku73 I don't know about you but The Last of Us Part 2 on Grounded difficulty makes for some insane gameplay
I found a lot of the side missions in Dying Light 1 to be more engaging than the main questline. Was that the case in your experience as well or were most narratives a mess?
Agreed, one I remember was the crazy guy who asked you to get a movie to watch for his “mom”, or the psychos basement with that poor dog…
side quests in this game are worse
@@soundthatyoucansee123 you played it?
I read they're good.
@@soundthatyoucansee123 hmm I don't think this guy played it. Most seem to agree that the side quests are pretty great.
It’s also quite challenging and tense. I’m old and play games on easy nowadays as I don’t have patience for hard games anymore, and find it a fair fun challenge even on easy. My only problem with the game is the amount of “cutscenes” where it takes the controller away from me is way too much, they go on too long. Hoping that gets better later in the game.
But you can skip single dialogues just by clicking skip. It’s a fantastic function that speeds it up
You dont start playing easy because your old, your old because you play on easy
Whatever the hell that means 🤨
@@chasescooper if you dont use it you loose it. By not challenging yourself do you not worry you will have a reduced capacity to respond to challenges?
I'm sorry but you are confusing as hell 🤨
So.. whatever the hell that means
After collecting all 35+ DLCs and playing roughly 800hrs in DL1 I'm finally ready for sequel to dive in. I never expected an awesome storytelling from Techland so I wont be dissapointed at least, they're masters of different fields and I know they will deliver on that.
Hell I would be happy if they just give a DL1 new map and new story, so a new game is a treat
Any game that looks like the devs poured their hearts and souls to it, usually is a fun game to play. ❤ dont necessarily have to be the best games ever. But when it looks like the people who made it care, you tend to care too
I loved Techland and their games a lot, but the way they treated Chris Avellone, makes them look bad. Not sincere independent people who lovingly worked on their project as it's their child. Do they really care now, or are they full of shit as many great in the past companies became?
Deep rock galactic has heart and soul by the truck load.
@@Lanewreck rock and stoneeeeee!
Same with Rainbow Six Extraction, it's really well polished yet the community around(those who never played it), somehow, hates it. Shill up also said he hated it. I honestly love it as much as I love Deep Rock Galactic and pve games like payday 2
@@yaago eh, extraction has a lot of issues with it's loop, but it's still solid, the r6 community is mad at it bc they still haven't done better about cheaters on pc and consol with zim and auto recoil. But pushed out a new ip instead while skins cost over $20.
There's a lot of reviews out, but I chose to watch yours. You've always kept it real, and I appreciate it.
Also....FINALLY!!!! DYING LIGHT 2!
He said Cyberpunk was phenomenal at launch lol
@@Demonmatamon He said Cyberpunk was phenomenal if you B-line the story, describing it as a tour of North Korea, where walking off the path shows the lack of immersion. Cyberpunk is a fine game, at least this one comes with basic features lol
Same, the one I've been waiting for
@@Demonmatamon Get over it
@@Demonmatamon don't have to agree with the dude at all times lol
Never played the first game for the story, the gameplay is what hooked me. So I don’t care about the story being mid and poorly paced. If the gameplay is solid and the open world is good I’ll get my money’s worth👍
Exactly
Couldn't agree more!
Actually the story in 1 was incredible
@@sfogel i agree i liked dying lights story
@@sfogel I wouldn't say incredible but it was competent which is more than you can say for a lot of games now a days
For anyone watching this a year+ later and is curious about performance: Don't use raytracing reflections. It is nearly solely responsible for the lower frames. Leave it on high or low (the difference is minimal) and the game runs very well.
When I was reading other people's reviews I had this vibe that most people are going to find this game okay but I'm personally going to love it immensely. Hearing you say something of the sort in this video was quite encouraging and I'm hoping that comes true for me when I play it tonight. Thanks SkillUp and Austin for your great work.
EDIT: It did. I love Dying Light 2 :)
EDIT 2: Midgame, I want to say that Combat is so much more interesting and tactical than it felt in Dying Light 1, and I can say that because I replayed the first game just three days before DL2 released. The way I can really spec into my preferred character archetype (read my name lol) and just _weave_ Throwing Knives in between strikes from my main weapon, jump over and through enemies, use the environment to just suppress swarms of enemies before they ever touch me, it's wild.
As long as the combat wasn't the main draw to dying light I'm sure you'll like it. The combat feels way less weighty but so far that's the biggest problem I have with the gameplay.
o hey it's the assassin man
Picked up the first one in the latest steam sale and enjoyed the ~25-30hrs I got out of it. Definitely a lot of issues with design choices (and clear development restrictions, like having 3 faces copied and pasted over all the NPC's).
DL2 looks like an expansion and refinement of the first one, albeit with some similiar issues the first one had. Definitely going to look at picking it up.
I played the first for 200 hours and loved every moment of it. This one looks to be a big step up and I'm so excited. In fact when I get home from work later I'll be able to change my xbox location to new Zealand and hop on
did you try the expansion? it fixed alot problems
the only reviewer where I actually watch the full videos, every time. keep it up brother
From the sounds of it from your impressions on the plot and writing, Techland just sorta failed to get something good together after they fired Chris Avellone from the project. I imagine before he was slapped with those allegations that they were letting him do most of the heavy lifting when it came to writing and had to scramble to get something together when needing to rewrite it later.
A replacement who evidently wasnt worth the money.
Maybe shouldnt hot shot themselves, and their customers, in the foot over what someone else *potentially* done.
That's not actually true, he only did some sidequests, those quests were scrapped, but the main story never had anything to do with him
@@lilliefluff oof, my bad then. I thought he was the lead writer because they used him to reveal the game at E3 like a million dog years ago.
@@lilliefluff if he was that insignificant why was he doing the presentation at the reveal ? why even fire him to begin with if he is so insignificant ?
@@Senumunu he was doing the presentation because he's a famous writer, he was meant to be a selling point and a marketing thing, and he was fired because I'd assume and hope that any employee with serious sexual harassment accusations and no valid defence would be?
I love the game. I just wish like the first one there was a way to repair weapons. I know there is the developer thing but I mean an actual vendor in game for repairs. That aside the NPC'S are very interesting and well written, with subjects like Dementia and Anxiety suffering broached in game. Big Kudos Techland for making humans characters that are relatable.
While some people were crying based on the 500 hrs of gameplay, I was cheering having played the Witcher 3 for 320 on my first playthrough.
Waiting on this review all week to the surprise of it going live at the end of my shift!! Been hearing a lot of things both good and bad about Dying Light 2, but interested to see what SkillUp has to share with us!
Me too Brother. Just waiting for the game to download.
Amen me too bestie
I'll be playing this mf today! New Zealand trick baby hehe.
@@JudeTheTH-camPoopersubscribe same
Man, 2022 is a stacked year for gaming. I imagine that it'll be a repeat of 2018 where all eyes are going to be on Elden Ring and Ragnarok while games like Dying Light 2 earns less attention even though it's a good game in its own right.
Dang man, i was waiting this review as much as i was waiting for the game, i'm kinda new to the channel but in the last month i watched pretty much every review you made, there's much effort put into them and i can't get enough of them even when i don't agree with what you say
The way he says and describes stuff is amazing honestly, my favorite reviewer...
Played between 6-10 hours everyday since launch. Dying Light is my favorite game this gen and Dying Light 2 has turned out amazing even on day one release. Techland will now spend the next 5 years or more patching and adding content, just as they have with the first Dying Light, I really cannot wait to see this world expand even more. Thank you Techland 10/10 from me
Ive already played 26 hours and i have had almost zero issues, only bug i found was during MP npc dialog would mute
Even when I disagree with some reviews here and there. You always do great reviews! Thank you!!!
"I have some issue with the length and pacing of this meaty package" - Skill Up, 2022
Just wanted to say bro, hearing the 1st "gamers" of 2022, it lit up my life a little bit. Keep up the great work! Can't wait to hear what ya say about Witch Queen.
I remember trying desperately to clear a safe house moments before sundown in the first game…amazing experience
there’s something called dark zones in this game and i’ll tell you what if you get caught in one when the sun comes up it’ll be the most terrifying thing you’ve experienced
Night time is so much better in 2
@@Tissuestrash I tried doing one at level 1 and let me tell you, frustrating, stressful and thrilling all at once. Using up all my damn mushies while trying to stealth around the zambies only to find the room with the Inhibitors is locked behind a medium lock pick challenge, a challenge that if you undertake, you will be undertaking in a room with about 15 zombies, some sleeping, about 3 walking around. and they WILL see you.
I managed by opening a Dark Zone shortcut to the entrance (where the UV is) so I could aggressively clear out the zambies and then retreat when my immunity was too low, rinse, repeat, finally I got the lock open (but not before sunrise) and took everything then bolted outta there. Damn, that's gameplay right there.
@@Tissuestrash They only send virals that are easy to kill, the only time the game forced me to go in the dark zones at night was in GRE zones. Where did all the volatiles go? I've completed the game and seen them like 3 times. Never even used stealth. Game needs a harder difficulty in my opinion.
Can I just point out the unbelievable integrity on display here?
Right around 9:20 Skill-Up points out that he is specifically reviewing the PC experience here and that he cant vouch for bugs and issues console players may have and recommends they seek out OTHER reviews that cover that. I cant think of another journalist , let alone a gaming one that would tell his own viewers to seek out second opinions so they can make the best informed choices for themselves. I know it seems like a small thing, but to me it's that kind of honesty that has my utmost respect. And why even though I may not always agree with Ralph's opinions 100% (nor do I think he would expect me too), I always enjoy these incredibly high quality and in-depth reviews and the consistently valuable perspective provided.
Nowhere else in the gaming space do I feel so respected as a viewer.
This game is a surprise hit for me. I almost wrote it off even having played and enjoyed the first game. Reason being is my anticipation for Horizon 2 and Elden Ring. Now I'm over 100 hours in and wondering if I'm gonna be able to pull myself away to kill robo dinos for 1 week before getting my SoulsBorne on for the foreseeable future. Dying Light 2 is just fun, fun, fun.
As someone who loved Dying Light 1, this makes me even more hyped for 2. Dying Light 1’s story had it’s dramatic moments but much of the game and the world came from also doing those side quests. It was awkward, had pacing issues, but it was so endearing. This sounds to be a bit like that, and about what I expected really. The movement, combat, detailed world, and overall vibe of what Dying Light is is what I’m going for here and this is exactly what I was expecting. It’s never reallt been known for it’s story, but if you run around that world there is always something to explore and find that makes it feel so alive. And the support for 1 was almost unheard of qith expansions, updates, events, and content coming up until this week, almost 7 years after release. Def excited for this one. I think you nailed it. 1 always felt like a passion project, and I’m glad 2 has that same feel. And we’re at least getting a stable game, on release for a change, which says a lot about the industry as a whole.
You really have to play Dying Light 1 still. It seems to me, that it has less of a story focus, but the open world environments are amazing, with some missions playing in the open world, others are linear and well paced. I loved every minute of it!
Definitely worth playing the first game. They literally spent 7 years fine tuning every aspect of the game and adding completely new content. In fact I’d say it’s even worth replaying if you haven’t played it since it’s release. It’s a completely different game compared to the launch version.
Except aftet playing 2 theres no point because 2 is better in every way
@@oh-not-the-bees7872 That’s certainly an opinion.
@@oh-not-the-bees7872 Can't agree or disagree because I didn't play the 2nd game, so: No I don't think you're right. Zombie population seems less dense, no guns, and a different scenario overall. This doesn't mean the 2nd game is worse, but they are different enough to experience both.
@@dariusrosso3783 also the first games story was much better loved Crain he was a great character and had a great VA
I’ve turned to skill up for reviews. No scores. No Bs. Grounded. Pros and cons. And love your style of humor.
An interesting thing I noticed is that Hakon looks a LOT like David Belle, the man who coined the term Parkour
I can't imagine why anyone would want to run an action game like this in 4k at 40fps instead of 1440p at 144 fps. Vsually you can barely tell the difference of having more pixles.
With reviews all over the place contradicting each other I knew I had to wait for your review. Thanks for another one!
Glad to see you enjoyed it! I love it so much
iknow the person who wrote that comment was norm. He's a sucker for open world games ive heard
Do you love sing 2 too?
I’m really excited for this one. Techland has my trust after how well they supported the first game. They really took the time to make it something special and kept adding things, even up to this year
It's crazy to think back to your Division days, cause that's how I discovered your channel. Still hold much love for that game and a lot of appreciation for your videos.
i've only shared recorded clips directly from my PS4 twice. Once when Assassin's Creed: Unity was glitching me through floors, and once when Dying Light 1's Co-Op was allowing me and my best bud to land some amazing parkour assisted zombie stomps. I'm looking forward to bringing back those moments in the new one on PC now.
Great review as usual. In depth, to the point and cover everything that a a buyer need. Btw Techland said that the day 1 patch has over 1000 fixes so I wouldn't be concerned about the bugs and even Dying Light 1 had some at launch but they were patched super quick, so I have faith in the devs!
8 days in and I still can't progress in the story, if you activate a water tower before a certain story mission you won't be able to progress anymore, just look up Sophie stuck dying light 2.
@@SuperAsdfdude I'm 50h in and no gamebreaking bugs so yeah
Dude this game is trash this reviewer is a sellout sheep
@@SuperAsdfdude some have majeure bugs some don't I geuss but now all of em are fixed
Reviews seem really positive so far which is great. The first game is one of my favorite games of all time.
Dude, your reviews are always just amazing and really dive deep. Thanks a lot for all the great work you put into them it is much appreciated. Still, monster hunter world review is one of my favorites.
clearly paid to review this favourably.
My friend and I played through all of Dying Light 1 with co-op, so with the gameplay being as fun as you've described, I can't wait for us to play again at midnight tonight. Great Video Ralph!
Having followed their production, I am not surprised. - I kept saying that they would probably deliver because they were just keeping quiet and putting their heads down.
Well, there you have it...
Honestly the story and characters seem very similar to the first game. Loved the first game still so I'm hoping if the combat and parkour are fresh then I'll love this one as well.
Dying Light was a great game. My favorite part was the Be the Zombie mode.
Playing as/against a player-controlled Night Hunter was extremely fun. Hope something like that shows up here.
Always seemed like pure op nonsense
thats the first thing I turned off....Garbage players who play like bitches and the instant you get close to killing them they try the run away and hide garbage.
Man you have become a pro video game reviewer. So consistently thoughtful, detailed and fair. Thank you.
On few channels will I like a video before watching it--this is one of them. I have so much trust in SkillUp (that includes Austin!) that I know it'll be good no matter what it is.
You should give this game another try if you haven’t recently. I know you already liked it but it’s gotten way better since release and they just had another big update which included changes to the cutscenes to make them more lively and a harder difficulty. They’ve also updated the combat and world a ton since release so everything feels and looks even better now
I'm glad to see Techland stuck to their roots and created a great game that has amazing gameplay but with a mediocre story, I'm buying it immediately!
Don’t think I’ve ever cared less about an upcoming story line of a game
Small note on the combat, I like the fact that the opponent at 23:41 feinted an attack, which if it's an actual thing they do regularly that immediately makes combat a lot more engaging. Glad to see that
Yeah enemies feint regularly.
They feint more commonly when they have your outnumbered, you'll see a few enemies come at once but only one of them will actually hit you
Really enjoyed the review and I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy the game as well. One thing I want to point out though. In the parkour segment you state that Assassin's Creed was really the only parkour based game for a long time, but Mirror's Edge actually released just a year after the first Assassin's Creed. In terms of direct inspirations, it's that little gem of a game that is most recognizable in Dying Light. It's successor was a disappointment so I'm delighted Dying Light exists to give me my Mirror's Edge-like fix.
I agree with you and I would also throw in Dishonored as well. As a diehard assassin’s creed stan I will say that Dying Light is more like Mirror’s Edge and Dishonored before Assassin’s Creed.
Mirror's Edge was bad.....The parkour was fine I guess but the boring ass run, no combat crap got old fast...The sequel was god awful.
@@lutherheggs451
Both _Mirror's Edge_ games have loads of combat.
@@kjj26k I wouldn't say the first Mirror's Edge had loads of combat, except towards the very end of the game. Regrettably so, as it was easily the worst part of the game. Until that point, it was more or less avoidable.
Anyway, to the other poster, to each their own I guess. I loved the original Mirror's Edge to bits, but I can understand it's not for everyone.
I only have a switch now I don’t even play the games you review but the quality of each video keeps me coming back. Bravo to everyone involved in making these videos. Absolutely top of the line!
I'll never understand how games like this get mixed reviews yet games like AC or Far Cry get praised
Expectations
"The story flops hard"
ah now I know it's the sequel to dying light, cant wait to play it!!!!
Yup, that’s the Dying Light I know and love lmao
If I had money I'd buy it. BUT I literally have all my gaming budget of the year on Elden Ring and future DLC. Great job! God help Austin, cuz all this content and news and acquisitions and releases are just the start of this year in videogames.
Hard choice to make but a good choice none the less.
Gaming budget? You’re under 18 I’m guessing or just cheap lol
Imagine having a gaming budget must be using your parents money poor
@@Windbend3r or some people just can’t blow all of their money on video games. Doesn’t make them cheap. That’s just an ignorant assumption😂
@@Xinlongsai I am astonished about how idiotic people are being about me not *wanting* (it's a choice, I have a billion hobbies, some expensive) to spend more money on videogames. Seriously though, you have more money than me but you can't afford some politeness?
I am genuinely curious how you prepare yourself to invest so much time into these games, and go in - and come out - with such a seemingly unbiased and positive take. I have seen so many game reviewers start out like that, but always end up bitter, impatient, and/or unmotivated. Not only are you so charismatic about your reviews, you seem to have such an outside-looking-in perspective that I can never do myself, like your general awareness about the act you are doing while you are doing it is impressive I guess. I dont mean to gas you up lol, you are just so damn good at what you do. Surely you can't play these games for so many hours on end to push these reviews out, and not get frustrated in ways that affect your review, but I am always proved wrong because you always seem so fair. GG. You were meant for this.
SkillUp feels like a gamer making reviews, where as a lot of other critics feel like reviewers playing games, if that makes any sense.
I miss the half hour metaphor intros
As a huge fan of the first game I can tell you that the storyline takes a huge side seat to the moment to moment action. Fans of Dying Light didn't come to the first game for its story. The story was an excused to kill zombies have fun with the parkour and the moment to moment action that the game offered. I completed Dying Light 1 storyline five times. I knew the missions like the back of my hand but I was mainly there to max out my character's legendary rank. It would be nice for players like me to be able to experience the story differently every time I go through it and to have different effects on the game environment based on the choices you make thank you for your review.
Story: I’ll admit the story/side quest are really good!
Bugs: From my gameplay, I have experienced no game breaking bugs! The only bugs I have seen were visual bugs here and there.
Parkour: Smooth!
Combat: A little wonky but its not bad!
I love your weekly breakdowns, and honestly your reviews in general. Your content is appreciated sir! This review notwithstanding.
Having a great story is very important, but gameplay can definitely make up for lack of story. Can’t wait to play this on coop
Love your work mate, cheers for the review! Looking forward to the game!
Since the parkour is so highly praised, it's worth pointing out that David Belle plays and was the character model for Hakon. Who tf is David Belle one may ask... he's only the dude that INVENTED the actual physical discipline of Parkour. If you've seen the 2004 French action thriller "District B13", you've seen this mad man in action. Thought that was a really cool touch on the part of Techland.
Great review, very solid video.
When I played the first Dying Light, that first night in the wild was genuinely terrifying. "Good night and good luck" still gives me a bit a chill.
Agreed, night time was terrifying
"This is Ayo speaking. Get to the nearest safe zone and wait until dawn. Good night, and good luck…"
@@sgtbaker2072 So good
12:30 immediately after praising the details that were being preserved despite the draw distance, we see skyrim style cardboard trees, with no shadows. So that's how they "pulled this off". It usually works for buildings.
Yeah pop up and lod are visible...and I hate that
As always SkillUp you have a really nuanced opinion of your experience, and are able to so clearly lay out all the best and worst features of a game. I'm not sure I'll be picking this one up but a great review nonetheless
Highly recommend this on series x! Amazing and so so fun!
I love this review so much. I never played the first one but was curious... I have answers to all my questions. Going to put this on the shortlist for the parkour, while continuing to nurse my Destiny 2 addiction. Thanks for the detail as always!
I bought the $100 version. Played for about 40 minutes. The black guy that you first meet says he’s leaving. And then he stays around. It’s not even 10 minutes in. I mean how does that even make sense? He said he was going to leave and he’s still there. First 10 minutes? Does this bode well for the rest of the game. Was not happy the beginning doesn’t allow me to make that jump. Not into QuickTime events like that or rather movie set pieces. 499 hours and 20 minutes to go!
*Is it me or does Aiden sound exactly like crane??????*
Breathes a sigh of relief. At last a decent game. Hurrah !!!
"Something went wrong with it's narrative departament" Yeah that is gonna happen when you fire your narrative director years into development and erase everything he wrote for this game. Dying Light 2 was revealed by its narrative director Chris Avellone with the team touting how they would focus on revolutionary narrative design it was the only reason I was interested in this game and despite all that happened with Avellone's firing I still held out hope the game could deliver on story, now I know I dont need to bother, really disappointing.
Imagine only looking at the story only and then deciding to not bother at all, when the parkour, combat and world design are insanely good.
if you play a game just for the story, you might aswell read a book.
Wonder if Avellone's firing got to do with story direction
@@Anonymous-ty8si terrible argument, video games and books tend to tell completely different stories
Dying Light 1 didn't have a great story either but it turned out to be on eof my favourite games of all time, the gameplay and level design was just that good.
Really liked the music bed for this review. It sounded like you were going to try to sell me a Dodge Ram or Wrangler jeans at some point.
Gotta love those puppet arms-on-a-stick. So lifelike!
I'm a little disappointed in the lack of special infected appearances in open-world gameplay. The only way to get most of them to come out is usually through chases. The nighttime gameplay in this game isn't as intense as the first game was. Volatiles are hardly even in the game aside from a couple story missions. they really needed to have more special infected roam the streets/roofs of the open world. I've gone through the whole game without seeing a banshee besides from the intro. I thought they would stalk the roofs at night but I haven't seen any besides through chases.
You just can't really play the game at night in the first game, so I much prefer the less intensity. I agree that the lack of special infected is disappointing, but night is overall way improved.
13:30 that's actually a shader issue, specifically with umbra rendering. You should be able to mess around with the shadow quality settings to mitigate it.
Not sure why you recommended this game. I believed in you and now I feel like I've wasted my money.
This game has terrible narrative pacing, unsatisfying combat and character progression, and the traversal is buggy as hell. And it doesn't even look that good with ray-tracing on. The developers just copy-pasted the same thing all over the map. And I could care less about the characters. It's such an unlikable game.
Can you please be more careful with your reviews? You recommended The Ascent too and that was a pretty terrible game as well. Both suffer from indie dev inexperience when it comes to the underlying systems. Don't even look at graphics when it comes to indie games. I think people are hyped when they see a small team make something that looks like a AAA game, but the game systems are so out of whack because all they did was focus on making the game look good.
You wouldn't want to play this game for 40 hrs let alone 500. $40 game at best. Buy it on sale.
I'm almost tempted to watch this again just to count all the times you said "parkour" 😁
great video, no complaints =)
Worth mentioning - Techland's long term technical support and content support for Dying Light was (and still is) excellent. So while it might take a while for all the bugs to get squashed, I have no doubt they will be fixed. I'll be waiting a bit, but I'm definitely getting this game eventually.
did this guy play a different game?
Love Skill up. Great review, the only one I ever care about. I know this represents the best grasp of what DL2 is likely to offer. keep doing what you do lads.
Its amazing how Skill Up, a one man show, manage to pump out review after review compared to AngryJoe with his two entourage that review 1 game a month, 2 if they feel like it.
Story in the first one was amazing!