Media conglomerate Tencent are throwing more money at game studios as part of their never-ending shopping spree. Today the studio behind zombie-smasher Dying Light, Techland, announced that Tencent will become the developer’s majority shareholder.
]]>Dying Light 2 came out last year, but the polished zombie-parkour sequel didn't make its predecessor obsolete. If what you're after is a more freeform, organic open world in which to survive, then the first Dying Light is arguably the better choice. Good news: its currently free-to-keep from the Epic Games Store alongside its excellent expansion.
]]>How time flies, eh? We were so busy putting together The RPS 100 last month (including the first ever Reader Edition), that we clean ran out of time to do another RPS Time Capsule. But fear not! Our written repository of games we've deemed worthy of saving from the eternal hell bin of the future has returned, and this time it's a good 'un. The year is 2015, folks, and cor, has there ever been a better year for video games? Of course, with only 11 slots to fill in our RPS Time Capsule, it also means we're having to say goodbye to some real gems. Come and see what's transcended to the higher plane of Capsule existence.
]]>Ageing zombie-ridden survival platformer Dying Light is receiving one final free update to its Hellraid mode on May 5th, Techland have announced, and it will let you take magic items into the city of Harran. Hellraid’s cursed arcade cabinet will sell you wands in its shop and let you carry them back to the main game, usually known more for its face-eating. It’s a shame Dying Light’s protag Kyle Crane isn’t silent or I could’ve role-played this as Sooty.
]]>Dying Light 2 released earlier this month, but that doesn't mean the first game of zombie-parkour-survival no longer has value. Developers Techland don't seem to be abandoning it, either: Dying Light Enhanced Edition is now available via the Epic Games Store, with a sizeable launch discount, and it now has crossplay so owners across Steam, Epic and GOG, whether on Windows, MacOS or Linux, can play co-op together.
]]>Tear your eyes away from all the upcoming E3 and E3-adjacent summer showcases for a moment, folks. Lest you forget, summer also brings game sales on games you can actually play right now, instead of games you'll play three years from now. GOG have kicked off their mega summer sale, starting off with some limited-time game and DLC bundles only available for the first 48 hours. Beyond that, you've got until June 28th to pick up your favorites from any of the other thousands of games that are on sale.
]]>A new report into development practices at Techland contains quotes from staff who allege that mismanagement, indecision, and the use of homophobic slurs has marred ongoing work on Dying Light 2. CEO Pawel Marchewka responded to the allegations at length - but defended hanging a photo of a naked woman next to a cheetah in his office.
]]>Go to hell, Dying Light. Techland's open-world zombie smasher is still cranking out DLC five years after release - and this time, it's trading shamblers for skeletons with a brief excursion to the underworld. Crack open the piggy-bank, get in line for the cursed arcade cabinet, and prepare to crack some skulls, survivors. Dying Light: Hellraid is out today.
]]>Dying Light, yes the original not the in-progress sequel, is getting a new DLC five years after launch. A strange arcade cabinet has popped up in the Tower's basement, so of course folks are going to drag it into the daylight and play it. Techland have released a new trailer, along with the news that you'll be able to jump in on July 23rd.
]]>Wow. Look at that summer sun slapping the face of the planet, like a big 12-hour camera flash. So hot, so clear-skied. A blessed day of walks in the park, trips to the beach, picnics by the litter bins. What a glorious day for wasps it is out there. Let’s all go to the...
Oh right. Forget I said anything. Go back inside, lock the doors, and consider some of these perfect virtual holiday destinations. Please, trust us with your fake vacation. After all, what is a games journalist but a sort of really dodgy travel agent?
]]>How often does a game get new DLC five years on? Maybe more often than I can recall offhand but hey, here's Dying Light announcing an upcoming DLC for its zombie action parkour world from 2015. As with the main game, you'll be able to dive into Dying Light - Hellraid either alone or with friends. It's planned for release sometime this summer.
]]>Dying Light is a zombie game. It does a lot of other things that frustrate or sort of disappoint me, too. But I can't help loving it in a very reserved sort of way.
]]>Dying Light's battle royale spin-off, Bad Blood, is now available for free to anyone who owns the original game. Whether you play the original on PC, PS4 or Xbox One, you can claim a free Steam code for Bad Blood right now. This isn't limited to current owners though, if you pick up Dying Light on any platform in the future you'll be eligible for a free copy of Bad Blood too.
]]>The last ten years have brought us many joys. We've already celebrated the best games of the past decade, but with such scattergun nomination comes neglect. Only three of the fifty games we picked had grappling hooks, so clearly the entire endeavour was pointless and you will need an alternative resource.
Here's my definitive guide to the swinging tenties. I haven't mentioned Worms, because they get everywhere and I don't want to spend my whole day talking about helminths.
]]>Of course the original editions of the Steam Charts focused on those maps used by the early pioneers of steam-based exploration, so this week we take a historical look back at the origins of your favourite game series. For just one week, put aside your modern electricity-based computing, and come on a journey through time.
]]>CD Projekt Red today announced an interesting partnership today with small studio Digital Scapes, with initial plans for them to work on upcoming mega-budget immersive sim Cyberpunk 2077. Digital Scapes recently made some waves through their work on Dying Light's surprisingly entertaining asymmetrical PvP mode while Techland focused on the single-player side of the game.
Tempting as that sounds, the announcement says that Digital Scapes will "closely cooperate with CD Projekt Red on creating and optimising technological solutions for use in the development of Cyberpunk 2077". Delightfully vague - that doesn't mean a possible multiplayer bonus mode is entirely off the cards, but don't go getting your hopes up - it's interesting to speculate on, though.
]]>Can you kick it? Yes, you can. Can you punt a ram? Yes, you can. Can you listen to the RPS podcast, aka the Electronic Wireless Show, as they talk about the best kicks in videogames? Yes, I already told you, of course you can. From the powerful hoof of Kassandra in the new Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to the zombie-launching boot of Dying Light, we are chatting about some of the most forceful feet in recent history. Come listen, and kick up the volume.
]]>The sound of an explosion and a huge burst of flame sends me sprinting for cover. The attack wasn’t directed at me, it turns out. One of my fellow survivors had walked into a hive of zombies and he was chargrilling them. I stay hidden behind a van and watch him duke it out. We’re both after the same thing: blood samples that will allow us to level up. He takes out the boss and, exhausted and bruised, proceeds to collect his samples. That’s when I throw my own molotov cocktail and leap in with my electrified axe. “I’m so sneaky and also handsome,” I think to myself as I pick his corpse clean and grab the samples for myself. I’m still feeling pretty smug when I leave the hive. Unfortunately I don’t notice the molotov cocktail hurtling towards me.
]]>Dying Light: Bad Blood is an odd beast - a volatile mutation, split from Techland's excellent zombie survival sandbox Dying Light. Twelve players roam the infested city of Harran, hunting for blood samples from pulsating zombie hives. Whoever fills up first gets a ride out of town. Competitive aspect and cringeworthy "brutal royale" designation aside, it looks very much like Dying Light, with familiar environments, enemies and weaponry. A curious choice for a spinoff, Bad Blood will be free-to-play later but early access costs money. Below, a parkour-heavy launch trailer.
]]>Thank God you're here. Listen, I don't want to over-hype things, but this might be the most essential and life-changing article you ever read. Because if you only click through to read this, you will LITERALLY find out the top ten (nine) grossing games on Steam last week, and seriously, if you bought one of them, you will feel so bloody validated.
]]>Take twelve people who are good at jumping, drop them into a zombie-infested city, and turn them loose to loot, level up, and murder each other until one emerges triumphant. That's Dying Light: Bad Blood, an upcoming multiplayer standalone spin-off from Techland's parkour-o-zombsmashing shooter series. Y'know, it's a Battle Royale/Hunger Games-ish doodad, as is the style of the time. But on a smaller scale, and with lots of NPC zombies to murder too. Techland today announced that Bad Blood will enter paid early access in September then properly launch as a free-to-play game after a few months.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Psst. I know mum said you weren’t allowed to listen to those hellions on your favourite podcast anymore, but the hosts of the Electronic Wireless Show won’t tell if you don’t. This week we’re talking about the games we weren’t allowed to play as youngsters, but did anyway. Alice suffered strict rationing of The Sims 2, and Dave (oh hello Dave) was looked at with concern while playing Silent Hill. Brendan’s parents didn’t seem to care. Let’s all go to Brendan’s house. He’s got GTA 2.
]]>More first-person parkour-o-zombiemurder is coming from Techland in Dying Light 2, announced today at E3. Once again, we'll get to leap and fight through (and over) a zombie-infested city, run missions for people, and try to survive. Simply more Dying Light would be grand, but this sounds like it's going ambitious on the story front too, drafting Chris "The Human Stretch Goal" Avellone as a narrative designer and co-writer. He gabbed about the game having decisions with "genuine consequences", where who you help and how will open and close opportunities and change the future of the city, with good and bad effects either way. Get a glimpse of that in the first gameplay demonstration below.
]]>Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.
Dying Light’s zombies are spooky, groaning and flailing at me as I parkour my player character across awnings and rooftops, but in the brightness of day, they’re exposed. They’re slow — slow enough that they’ll never catch up with my sprinting hero — and as clumsy as you’d expect from animated slabs of rotting meat. The zombie apocalypse has come, but the humans of fictional middle-eastern city Harran are still the masters of the daytime.
]]>Dying Light, like the best of zombies, keeps on picking itself up to take a bite out of my free time. Yesterday, Techland's cult hit zombie parkour sandbox was blessed with yet another chunky free content update, adding a lengthy new mission for 1-4 players set in Harran's zombie-and-soldier infested prison. Players still exploring the Old Town streets might also bump into a unique Demolisher zombie mini-boss wandering about, hucking bloody great chunks of concrete at less wary players.
]]>The enduring success of Dying Light is a pleasant surprise. Nobody really expected too much of Techland's Dead Island spinoff, but the studio weathered a rough launch and continued to support the game through patches, free content updates and (eventually) a truly excellent expansion.
Most other studios would be done with a game after the inevitable Definitive Goaty Edition, but late last year Techland renewed their vow to support Dying Light well into 2018. We're now three years past the original release, and they're celebrating the event with discounts for newcomers and free in-game goodies for all spread across February.
]]>No. Let's not be ridiculous. But there are so many examples of bad survival games that it’s important to remember the good ones. So that’s what we are doing on the latest RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. We're breaking stones over the heads of rubbish survival games, but cooking, salting and eating the delicious ones. Adam wraps himself up in The Long Dark but reluctantly sets Project Zomboid on fire to stay warm. Matt gets sea sickness from Subnautica but wants to swim again anyway. And Brendan freedives into Subnautica too, in an attempt to escape from all the mediocre survival games set on red planets.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>In the grim darkness of the near future, there is only Battle Royale. And things vaguely similar to Battle Royale.
Dying Light is the latest game to announce news of such a mode. This one will be arriving in the form of a standalone expansion called Bad Blood and it actually sounds far more suited to the game than I initially suspected. That's mostly because it doesn't sound like it has that much in common with the battle royale sub-genre, whatever this here press release might say.
]]>Are you strong enough to read the Steam Charts? Do you have what it takes to read all the way to the end? Can you defeat the Plunkbat final boss? NO! NO YOU ARE TOO WEAK!
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>Though parkouring zombie-stabber Dying Light came out a good two years ago, developers Techland this week announced that they'll release ten free 'DLC' packs(/content updates) over the next year. How nice! Dying Light is still pretty popular, see, with its peak concurrent player count over 8,000 today on Steam alone. So! Techland are working on new enemies, areas, and other odds and ends to add for free.
]]>We don’t do scores on RPS, but sometimes we mourn for the inability to deploy a 7/10. The ur-score, the most double-edged of critical swords, the good but not great, the better than it deserves to be, the guilty pleasure, the bungled aspiration, the knows exactly what it is, the straight down the line. One score that can mean so much.
There is one particular type of 7/10 game that heralds joy, not disappointment: the solid, maybe ever so slightly wonky action game with no interest in being anything more than a solid action game.
]]>Dying Light seemed to pass by all of my friends and me too, but its first-person zombie parkour has been a big success for developers Techland. Now the studio are working on two new games, one of which seems likely to be Dying Light 2.
]]>Usually we post about Rocket League [official site] because it's taking yet another iconic car from pop culture and turning it into DLC, but not this time. This time it's the other way around: it's the Rocket League buggy that has come to Dying Light [official site] as a free DLC. So if you ever get tired of running over zombies you can play some car football.
Jump the break for a video, and details on how to get the update.
]]>The Following is an enormous expansion, adding a huge new map and all manner of vehicular carnage to Techland's open world zombie-smasher Dying Light [official site]. But does a game about urban exploration and claustrophobic limb-lopping really need to stretch its legs in the great outdoors? And how does a buggy fit into a world of parkour and pummelling? Is carkour even possible?
Here's wot I think.
]]>Today's a big day for Dying Light [official site], with three new releases coming to the open-world, zombie-slaying, parkouring FPS. I'll try to explain this slowly, because it's all enough that there's a diagram explaining it all. So! Today brings The Following, the paid expansion which adds a new area and vehicles to Dying Light. Today also brings a free update with many tweaks and improvements to Dying Light. Lastly, today brings Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition, which combines the base game (and that patch, natch) and The Following plus all its other DLC. Get it? Got it? Good.
]]>I'm the resident cheerleader for Dying Light [official site] round these parts. Techland's zombies 'n' parkour urban playground was one of my favourite action games of 2015, and a few hours with enormous expansion The Following have convinced me that the entire game is far smarter than the surface suggests. Rather than distracting from the free-running and scavenging, the addition of a vehicle and rural map bring out the best in the existing systems.
]]>A dead man's tongue unrolls from the cuckoo clock, leathery lungs hissing its call as the bloodbells chime, which can only mean it's murdertime. Dying Light [official site] has added conventional man-killing deathmatch with an update to its level editor, so you can battle folks who are as zippy and wily as yourself. Kill! Kill! Players can make their own co-op maps now too.
Or, if that's not your bag, hey, a new video shows 16 minutes of crossbows and dune buggies from the zombie-mashing FPS's upcoming expansion The Following.
]]>Dying Light's [official site] mega-expansion, The Following, takes the zombie-killing open world action out of the city and into the surrounding area. That means your parkour and urban scavenging skills might be slightly less useful than they had been while you were clambering across rooftops and digging through the trash. Enter the buggy - a customisable vehicle that has its own equivalent of the base game's skill trees.
Those skills haven't been left behind though. The expansion, and the free update for the base game, will introduce 250 new legendary levels, allowing you to become faster, stronger and smarter.
]]>Since its reveal earlier this year, details on The Following - the upcoming expansion for zombie survival parkour-a-thon Dying Light [official site] - have been few and far between. We've been told there'll be an unscrupulous cult, that we'll get to travel outside the quarantine zone, and that we'll get to cart around in a selection of undead-decimating dune buggies. Now, we discover there might be a cure and a way out of Harran, courtesy of the new story trailer below.
]]>For a while, earlier this year, Adam would come back from his lunch break with suspicious rips in his clothes, dust and dirt on his knees, and blood soaking him from head to toe. No matter how much he insisted he'd simply smoked a particularly dangerous cigarette, we knew: he was on the parkour-a-zomb-o-kills. Adam liked Dying Light [official site], I'm trying to say. He liked the video game. He thought it was good.
Hey, Adam, good news: it's getting even fancier in an Enhanced Edition, coming as a free update in February. Its expansion, The Following, has a release date now too.
]]>I don't know anything about business but I know that if you're not disrupting, you're bankrupting. This isn't 2014, grandma. Here in 2015, we've disrupted the economic paradigm with an innovative shareconomy. Just the other day, I used the app Walk A Mile to rent my shoes to someone who wanted a smarter pair for a business lunch.
So yeah, you might be used to DLC and DLC season passes becoming cheaper over time, but pssh! We can disrupt that. Get this: the Dying Light [official site] DLC season pass's price is about to go up from $20 to $30. Its makers say the upcoming expansion included with it, The Following, has grown big enough to warrant a higher price.
]]>As winter draws nearer, so too does darker nights and frosty pavements. I like running, you see, and it's at this time of year I switch from jogs around my local park to the treadmill at the gym. Which is way more boring. I often think: what would make this run more exciting? And the answer is invariably zombies. Zombies make things like aimless running more exciting. That and parkour - a fact Dying Light [official site] understands. The Following, the game's first major expansion, wants to throw a zombie-bashing buggy into the mix. It's also decided it will arrive early next year, according to its latest trailer. Have a look, see.
]]>Have you played Dying Light [official site]? Techland's follow-up to Dead Island is pretty good fun, says our Adam. You run and jump and parkour around an open world, killing zombies with guns and fancy knives. If that's your sort of bag, hey, you might fancy playing its demo, which has finally launched on Steam - eight months after the game's initial release.
If you have played Dying Light, you might fancy watching 15 minutes of gameplay from its upcoming expansion The Following, which adds a new area and vehicles.
]]>As the only member of RPS who recognises the brilliance of Dying Light [official site], I'm probably the only person here who is delighted by the reveal of a huge, meaty expansion. A new map as big as the one in the original, customisably buggies to drive around in and rural areas to sit alongside the urban environment of the base game. I had a very quick play with some of the new weapons at Gamescom - picking people of silently with a crossbow and mowing zombies down with an assault rifle - and took the vehicle for a spin. It'll be fully customisable, as well as providing a new skilltree to work through. Possibilities include blades on the wheels, a flamethrower on the roof or UV lights on the side panels. Video below.
]]>An expansion named The Following is coming to Dying Light [official site], but developers Techland are being big teasy-teases. You'll get to mow down zombies in a dinky little dune buggy across a big new map, and that's about all they've said. Though, really, what more would you want them to say? Next week during the big Gamescom show they'll reveal more, but I imagine it'll boring details like a guff story you won't care about. Maybe this terse explanation is the best it'll sound until you get to play yourself. New map, vehicles, vehicular homicide - dandy.
]]>The first DLC expansion for Dying Light [official site] has now been announced, detailed and dated. It's called The Bozak Horde and, judging from the teaser trailer below it has a touch of Saw about it, as you’re challenged to complete some sicko’s elaborate game to stay alive. We’re going layers deep into gameception with this one. Succeed and you’ll win a super-stealthy composite bow with magic lightning and explosive arrows.
]]>Wonderful things, mods. Without them, we'd have far fewer readme files in the world. Today Dying Light [official site] joined in on the mod fun with the release of its official mod tools, which let folks create levels, script quests, and whatnot. You too could make a map of your office and populate it with lookalikes of your office who tell you how cool and ruggedly good-looking you are. But please do remember to write a readme explaining that.
Or, for non-modders, good news: I see a load of new Dying Light things to play coming your way.
]]>Techland, makers of Dying Light [official site], have announced they plan to release official mod tools for the free-running zombie 'em up. Developers actively encouraging mods rather than simply tolerating them is grand in this day and age, when official support in blockbusters is rarer than it once was, and especially after the kerfuffle surrounding Dying Light mods over the past fortnight (I'll explain in a bit). They haven't said yet quite what the tools will support or when they'll arrive, only that they'll be "extensive". Good-o!
]]>The Dying Light [official site] mod unpleasantness of the past week has been cleared up, and was indeed double whammy of overzealous protection. Developers Techland are doing something about the cheat protection that also blocked legitimate mods, while the Entertainment Software Assocation have nonapologised for copyright takedown notices issued in its name against sites hosting mod downloads. Huzzah! They don't hate mods, they simply didn't think things through.
]]>Ooh, mods! Lovely, lovely mods. But while mods can add all sorts of lovely new things to games, a game letting folks fiddle its files might also make it vulnerable to cheaty cheats. The difference between a rad dinocop skin and a spiked model is artistic intent. Dying Light [official site] is being a bit overzealous in its attempts to block the bad, though.
The latest update's changelog includes "blocked cheating by changing game's data files", which also blocks things like editing weapons. Some modders have even had mods they uploaded to public file hosts removed through copyright protection laws.
]]>Dying Light [official site] is the new zombie game from the creators of the original Dead Island. Adding parkour to the first-person melee combat and crafting of the original, it has the appearance of a game suffering something of an identity crisis, packed with repurposed elements but lacking a clear direction. Review copies arrived late, causing eyebrows to raise in suspicion, and after several days and nights with the game, I've emerged with extensive thoughts.
]]>Sounded nice, Dying Light's 'Be the Zombie' mode where you get to invade other players' co-op games as a super-zombie, didn't it? Sounded awful, how it'd initially be available as pre-order bonus DLC, didn't it? In a rare display of stopping-being-silly, that pre-order guff is now off. The mode will be given to everyone for free, developers Techland have announced alongside word of a messy release that'll see boxed copies delayed by a month in some places.
]]>"Where do zombies come from?" my little niece asked the other day. As The Cool Aunt, I thought I could handle this. "Well, small child," I said, "when two zombies love each other very much, and want to... ah." Sweat poured down my brow. I started over, "The thing about flesh is... no, no. Okay, so, you may have noticed that people..." If only Dying Light's cinematic intro had arrived in trailer form a little sooner, I might be welcome at this year's family Christmas dinner.
]]>Pretty good game, that there Dark Souls, isn't it? Pret-ty good games. And influential too. The most obvious trace we're starting to see in other games is invasions, when some bully from That Internet comes swaggering into your game to ping your knicker elastic, tear pages out your copybook, and stuff you into a locker. We saw it in Watch_Dogs, and now it's in Dying Light too, Dead Island creators Techland's new zombie 'em up.
Sort of. In a pretty gross way, 'Be the Zombie' mode is split off into a DLC pack that publishers Warner Bros. are waving around as a pre-order bonus. Without it, you can be invaded but not invade.
]]>Dying Light is a 1-4 player cooperative first-person game set in an urban location that is full of zombies. Under development at Techland and originally conceived as a sequel to Dead Island, it contains all the expected gore and giblets, but also goes in for some of that parkour that the kids use to commute to their office jobs these days. Graham went hands-on at Gamescom and found the controls fussy, which I take to mean that he jumped off a building and landed in a zombie's gob by mistake. I'm glad to have a sprinkling of doubt because a Mirror's Edge/Left 4 Dead mash-up is mighty tempting and the brand new video below is brill. Graham keeps expectations in check, like a glum father explaining the queue sizes and fatality rates before a trip to the funfair.
]]>The megabooths have been disassembled, the lanyards have been discarded and the crowds have dissipated - Gamescom has run its course for another year. RPS sent its two best Smiths to Cologne last week. Their brief was to see the games, talk to the creators and meet as many terrifying mechanical puppets as possible. They succeeded on all fronts and returned with tales of Elite: Dangerous, Pathologic, Warhammer and Dead Island, among many other delights and disappointments. Here are their thoughts on the show as a whole, along with a few highlights.
]]>Dying Light is an impatient game, which might explain all of the running around and jumping and firing of grappling hooks. My personal response to a zombie uprising would most likely involve barricading myself into a Waitrose store and attempting to live on toasted almonds, feta dirigibles and the Duchy's pink fizz. The characters in Techland's latest have a very different reaction to the end times - they run around, leaping off buildings, severing rotten limbs as they go. They're indulging in 'Creative Brutality', the new trailer below reckons, and I have to admit it looks like they're making the best of a bad situation.
]]>With E3 just around the corner, you know the score: it's time to get hyped! Do a Dew, chug some Doritos, mainline that Monster, shotgun that Red Bull, ransack that Rustlers, and get ready for a non-stop 24/7 gameblast announcefest trailer-o-rama! Not quite yet, though. Calm down. Chill out. Hey, cough up that cigarette you'd inhaled whole, you. E3 doesn't officially begin until Tuesday, so let's take it nice and easy and warm up with the E3 trailer for Dying Light.
A cynic might call Techland's latest "Dead Island with jumping" but this trailer shows it's Dead Island with jumping and a grappling hook, which is a very important distinction to draw.
]]>Zombies, traditionally speaking, are slow. Not Dying Light's zombies, though. Once light dies and night falls, the shambling undead become spry as acrobats equipped with the most cutting-edge of Moon Shoes (Moon Shoes!). Except when they don't. I guess Techland is developing Dying Light in a place where it's perpetually daytime, because the parkour-infused zombo-clobberer's been delayed into 2015.
]]>Did you know that the costumes the Alliance soldiers wear in the Firefly episode The Train Job were originally used in Starship Troopers? That sort of recycling happens all the time in movies and TV. I'm a person of limited imagination, so when I first spotted Techland's Dying Light, it appeared to me that they had swathes of zombie material lying around from Dead Island and decided to reshape it into a game about free-running past the undead. I still kind of stand by that. Whatever its inception, the fleet-footed zombie dodger is coming out pretty soon, and there's a wee teaser trailer for you below.
]]>Oh my, Techland's totally-not-a-Dead-Island-sequel-despite-being-set-on-an-island-of-the-dead game Dying Light actually looks good. Really good. After Dead Island: Riptide capsized into a swirling maelstrom of disappointment, I was expecting the worst, but I think I'm actually excited. For another zombie game. Will wonders never cease? Techland's put out 12 minutes of gameplay footage, and its blend of Mirror's-Edge-inspired sprintleaping, undead slide-kicking, and sheer, adrenaline-soaked night flight terror looks wonderfully promising. Watch below.
]]>You know how Dead Island dev Techland can't resist pairing zombies with CG trailers and dismally sad twists even though their games aren't at all about the latter two things? Well, they've done it again, though I will admit that Dying Light seems to have clambered into the Realm Where Gameplay Dares Not Tread with a bit more of its overarching concept intact. Running! Jumping! Thwacking with objects that weren't designed with thwacking in mind! You'll find all of that Mirror's-Edge-meets-zombies action with a shiny, cut-heavy makeover after the break.
]]>ZOMBIES ARE EVERYWHERE. In the schools, under your refrigerator, buried deep within the collective cultural conscience. Especially that last one, which is probably why a new zombie game gets announced every 0.4674 seconds. That brings us to the current undead re-deadifier du seconde: Dying Light. It comes from Techland and takes place in a balmy, bloody tropical setting, but it's not part of the Dead Island series. The main differences? Fleet-footed, Mirror's-Edge-esque parkour and a Minecraft-like survival element. Don't worry, though: you can still make an electrified machete.
]]>
