Wrapping up the Story

So there you go - a very clear setup for a sequel!

Completing the Story Mode and Main Mission is only part of the adventure that is Dying Light you know! After the credits roll you are returned to the game in free-roam at the last save point before the Rais Battle. At this point you can continue to do any of the content you have not yet completed.

We assume that you took care of all of the side-quests before you bit into the final Apple that was Mission 15, right?

In addition to all of that, there is also the online MP side of the game, and we are told that there will be expansion content in the form of follow-on DLC as well.

All things being equal, once you have completed the story mode on your own, and the side-quests, and once you have wrapped up all of the collections and unlocked that challenging set of Achievements or Trophies (depending on your platform) there are still a fair number of challenges to be completed.

Unless you went out of your way to see to it that you unlocked all of the Achievements/Trophies that you could have unlocked, there should still be a chunk of conditional ones (like the climbing and combat ones) as well as the multi-player ones.

So a return to Harran for a new play-through with a few mates is certainly in order!

Don't know about you but I did not see the game ending like it did - I did not see that coming - but in a way it makes perfect sense for it to end that way since it nicely sets up the story for the sequel, and it seems pretty clear that there will be a sequel.

Now that the game is done we can make an observation that we have been itching to make pretty much from the start: Dying Light was NOT a spiritual sequel to Dead Island at all!

You know that Techland made both Dead Island and Dying Light - but did you know that when they tried to bring Dead Island to Deep Silver as the next serious game project, the folks at Deep Silver basically said no?

What they wanted was another Dead Island game - that is to say a Zombie game with humor and the sort of tongue-in-cheek and over-the-top take that was the essential heart of the Dead Island game series.

The thing is Techland did not envision doing that - what they wanted to do was to create a game - a Zombie game to be sure - but one that was NOT funny. One that did not include that campy humor for which the Dead Island series is known and loved.

What Techland had in mind was a more serious take on the subject, but one that largely kept the combat style of Dead Island intact - but cut out the humor and comic book style of game play. And it is all the better for those decisions too!

If you cut your teeth on Dead Island then nothing during the daylight hours in Dying Light is going to phase you. But at night? Whoa baby that is a whole different kettle of piranha!

It may help in understanding that reaction if you knew that we had not heard about Dead Island or the controversy that was attached to it prior to being assigned the guide for it.

In fact when we did hear about it - when we were assigned the guide - in the back of my mind and my gut response was to wonder why the editors here at SC were so invested in the guide for this game. After all it was just the next Dead Island was how I saw it. Man was I wrong!

I understand now why they were so keen to have the guide written. Because Dying Light is a game that in all brutal honesty you simply cannot play without guidance. At least not effectively.

But playing games without a guide is what we do - we have to since you know, we write the guide.

Getting the strategy down, opening communication with our small group of hard core gamers and exchanging information is part of the process - and in doing that we discovered that Dying Light is in no way, shape, or form the sequel to (or even part of) the Dead Island game series!

No, it is far more than that. It is a sincere and realistic take on the Disaster-based Survival Horror game that is built around zombies. Except that the zombies in Dying Light? Yeah, they are not really zombies at all! They are infected humans.

They come in so many pleasing if scary as hell variates. And the real bogeymen come out at night. A factor that adds some very real punch to the name of the game.

We sincerely hope that you find the game as exciting and challenging as we did. We also hope that you find our guide to be as helpful as we know it is.

We took special care to provide you with just the right amount of guidance for the collections - as that is a resource we know you desire - while still leaving room in the game for your own discoveries. That way you get the best of both sides.

That pretty much wraps it up! Enjoy!