Dying Light 2 was one of last year\u2019s insatiable AAA time-sinks, designed to outlast any thought of refund or trade-in. It pulled dozens if not hundreds of hours from millions of players. And although that time slipped down the drain easily enough, happily wasted and easily forgotten, it\u2019s now resurfaced\u2014like a fatberg blocking up the sewers\u2014in Spotify Wrapped-style presentations from the likes of Steam. Thanks, Gabe. Really, you shouldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, I personally spunked the equivalent of one-and-a-half working weeks on Techland\u2019s overambitious zombie sequel. Being confronted with a hard figure like that, in the cold twilight of the new year, tends to prompt a little regret and reexamination. What was the motivation? Why did I settle on a 6\/10 with my review editor at Edge magazine, and then go back for more?<\/p>\n
\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
(Image credit: Techland)<\/span><\/p>\n I can\u2019t speak for other Dying Light 2 players, who perhaps sought escape or simply value for money. But I know that I was chasing something very specific. A high brought on a decade prior by the time trials of Mirror\u2019s Edge\u2014those taut yet freeform gauntlets made up of rooftop extractor fans, fire escapes and sudden chasms which made the best of first-person parkour.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Dying Light 2, as in Mirror\u2019s Edge, navigation is almost always a high wire act that pushes you to think before you jump. But in timed challenge mode, that careful tread is balanced against a ticking clock. The toughest and most satisfying parkour trials in Dying Light 2 forced me to abandon the thoughtful approach in pursuit of pure speed if I was to stand a chance of reaching the top scores\u2014firing myself forward with the assistance of my trusty grappling hook, while hoping that memories of recent runs would make sense of the blurred terrain as it flew by.<\/p>\n Those standout runs had to be teased out of the open-world morass of quasi-medieval Villedor, however. Dying Light 2\u2019s parkour challenges are fairly numerous, but are uncovered organically, one by one, across the breadth of its city map\u2014the largest part of which is gated behind campaign progress. And even then, many won\u2019t be manageable until you\u2019ve put in the hours with Techland\u2019s skill tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wall running, sliding under objects, the emergency forward roll that saves you from pancaking after a long fall\u2014these are all central components of the first-person parkour moveset which can be traced back to Mirror\u2019s Edge. You\u2019ll struggle to conserve crucial momentum without them. And yet they\u2019re all buried beneath character progression in Dying Light 2, locked away until you\u2019ve collected the necessary XP. As for that grappling hook, forget about adding it to your toolbelt until you\u2019re deep into the hit-and-miss story.<\/p>\n \n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n (Image credit: Annapurna Interactive)<\/span><\/p>\n If the dim, flickering hope of proper parkour sustained me through Dying Light 2, then the release of Neon White in the summer was a blinding lightbulb. This is a game built almost entirely from first-person movement challenges, all timed and intended to be repeated in leaderboard battles with your friends. I say friends: I was driven on by the impressive performance of a former colleague I haven\u2019t seen in years, and who probably has no idea I was using his scores as a high watermark. Nonetheless: cheers, Nick. Hope you\u2019re well.<\/p>\n At first glance, you wouldn\u2019t think Neon White has enough Mirror\u2019s Edge about it to hit the spot. Its abstracted and lurid levels, built from severe and textureless towers and viaducts, evokes 90s shooters rather than the GoPro footage of real-life freerunners. And the parkour itself veers closer to Minecraft community efforts than DICE\u2019s model. Press \u2018w\u2019 and you\u2019ll move forward at a set velocity, gathering no momentum unless temporarily boosted by bombs or flowing water. Hit the spacebar and you\u2019ll paint a floaty arc through the air, but won\u2019t see any flailing limbs in your peripheral vision\u2014only white streaks to suggest you\u2019re travelling at speed. There\u2019s no stamina bar, nor any way to interact with the ledges and walls in your path, other than to land on or circumvent them.\u00a0<\/p>\n All of this might strike you as a backward step for the parkour genre. Yet Neon White isn\u2019t featureless. It\u2019s focused. And its levels aren\u2019t blank\u2014they\u2019re clean and easy to read, all the better for plotting a laser-guided route through. Their tidiness leaves room for a tactical layer, provided by a hand of cards which can each be used in one of two ways, either to fire a projectile at an enemy, or punctuate your parkour in some specific way. A pistol is also a double-jump. A rifle can be a horizontal dash. The uzi? A ground-pound that drops you like a plummeting elevator. By the time you\u2019ve perfected a map, you\u2019ll have decided exactly how to play each card and when\u2014expending them with split-second precision.<\/p>\n \n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n (Image credit: Annapurna Interactive)<\/span><\/p>\n Map perfection is achievable not only by streamers and YouTubers who specialise in that sort of thing, but the average player\u2014thanks to the Neon White\u2019s tight scope and instant resets. It\u2019s a kind of accelerated learning made familiar by micro-challenge platformers like Celeste and Super Meat Boy. Since you\u2019re never more than a handful of seconds from your last wrong turn, you can correct your flaws, experiment with routes, and iterate on runs at breakneck pace. The curve from first contact to mastery can be drawn in just a few minutes, but it\u2019s no trick\u2014this is real, skill-based problem-solving you can be proud of.<\/p>\n Which makes it all the more frustrating to remember every time Dying Light 2 booted me back to the open world rather than letting me retry an obstacle course while it was fresh in my head. It\u2019s understandable, of course: Techland\u2019s sequel doesn\u2019t just do parkour, but also exploration, scavenging, stealth, survival horror, first-person melee and branching narrative. Every part of that equation must be balanced with the rest, and none can take precedence\u2014since variety in activities is a central tenet of the open-world formula. But looking back on the year, I\u2019m grateful to Neon White for letting me skip to the good bit. Even if it did highlight just how many hours I\u2019ve flushed down the u-bend.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [#item_image]Neon White achieved in 60 seconds what Dying Light 2 couldn’t in 60 hours<\/p>\n Dying Light 2 was one of last year\u2019s insatiable AAA time-sinks, designed to outlast any thought of refund or trade-in. It pulled dozens if not hundreds of hours from millions of players. And although that time slipped down the drain easily enough, happily wasted and easily forgotten, it\u2019s now resurfaced\u2014like a fatberg blocking up the sewers\u2014in Spotify Wrapped-style presentations from the likes of Steam. Thanks, Gabe. Really, you shouldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n As it turns out, I personally spunked the equivalent of one-and-a-half working weeks on Techland\u2019s overambitious zombie sequel. Being confronted with a hard figure like that, in the cold twilight of the new year, tends to prompt a little regret and reexamination. What was the motivation? Why did I settle on a 6\/10 with my review editor at Edge magazine, and then go back for more?<\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n (Image credit: Techland)<\/span><\/p>\n I can\u2019t speak for other Dying Light 2 players, who perhaps sought escape or simply value for money. But I know that I was chasing something very specific. A high brought on a decade prior by the time trials of Mirror\u2019s Edge\u2014those taut yet freeform gauntlets made up of rooftop extractor fans, fire escapes and sudden chasms which made the best of first-person parkour.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Dying Light 2, as in Mirror\u2019s Edge, navigation is almost always a high wire act that pushes you to think before you jump. But in timed challenge mode, that careful tread is balanced against a ticking clock. The toughest and most satisfying parkour trials in Dying Light 2 forced me to abandon the thoughtful approach in pursuit of pure speed if I was to stand a chance of reaching the top scores\u2014firing myself forward with the assistance of my trusty grappling hook, while hoping that memories of recent runs would make sense of the blurred terrain as it flew by.<\/p>\n Those standout runs had to be teased out of the open-world morass of quasi-medieval Villedor, however. Dying Light 2\u2019s parkour challenges are fairly numerous, but are uncovered organically, one by one, across the breadth of its city map\u2014the largest part of which is gated behind campaign progress. And even then, many won\u2019t be manageable until you\u2019ve put in the hours with Techland\u2019s skill tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wall running, sliding under objects, the emergency forward roll that saves you from pancaking after a long fall\u2014these are all central components of the first-person parkour moveset which can be traced back to Mirror\u2019s Edge. You\u2019ll struggle to conserve crucial momentum without them. And yet they\u2019re all buried beneath character progression in Dying Light 2, locked away until you\u2019ve collected the necessary XP. As for that grappling hook, forget about adding it to your toolbelt until you\u2019re deep into the hit-and-miss story.<\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n (Image credit: Annapurna Interactive)<\/span><\/p>\n If the dim, flickering hope of proper parkour sustained me through Dying Light 2, then the release of Neon White in the summer was a blinding lightbulb. This is a game built almost entirely from first-person movement challenges, all timed and intended to be repeated in leaderboard battles with your friends. I say friends: I was driven on by the impressive performance of a former colleague I haven\u2019t seen in years, and who probably has no idea I was using his scores as a high watermark. Nonetheless: cheers, Nick. Hope you\u2019re well.<\/p>\n At first glance, you wouldn\u2019t think Neon White has enough Mirror\u2019s Edge about it to hit the spot. Its abstracted and lurid levels, built from severe and textureless towers and viaducts, evokes 90s shooters rather than the GoPro footage of real-life freerunners. And the parkour itself veers closer to Minecraft community efforts than DICE\u2019s model. Press \u2018w\u2019 and you\u2019ll move forward at a set velocity, gathering no momentum unless temporarily boosted by bombs or flowing water. Hit the spacebar and you\u2019ll paint a floaty arc through the air, but won\u2019t see any flailing limbs in your peripheral vision\u2014only white streaks to suggest you\u2019re travelling at speed. There\u2019s no stamina bar, nor any way to interact with the ledges and walls in your path, other than to land on or circumvent them.\u00a0<\/p>\n All of this might strike you as a backward step for the parkour genre. Yet Neon White isn\u2019t featureless. It\u2019s focused. And its levels aren\u2019t blank\u2014they\u2019re clean and easy to read, all the better for plotting a laser-guided route through. Their tidiness leaves room for a tactical layer, provided by a hand of cards which can each be used in one of two ways, either to fire a projectile at an enemy, or punctuate your parkour in some specific way. A pistol is also a double-jump. A rifle can be a horizontal dash. The uzi? A ground-pound that drops you like a plummeting elevator. By the time you\u2019ve perfected a map, you\u2019ll have decided exactly how to play each card and when\u2014expending them with split-second precision.<\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n (Image credit: Annapurna Interactive)<\/span><\/p>\n Map perfection is achievable not only by streamers and YouTubers who specialise in that sort of thing, but the average player\u2014thanks to the Neon White\u2019s tight scope and instant resets. It\u2019s a kind of accelerated learning made familiar by micro-challenge platformers like Celeste and Super Meat Boy. Since you\u2019re never more than a handful of seconds from your last wrong turn, you can correct your flaws, experiment with routes, and iterate on runs at breakneck pace. The curve from first contact to mastery can be drawn in just a few minutes, but it\u2019s no trick\u2014this is real, skill-based problem-solving you can be proud of.<\/p>\n Which makes it all the more frustrating to remember every time Dying Light 2 booted me back to the open world rather than letting me retry an obstacle course while it was fresh in my head. It\u2019s understandable, of course: Techland\u2019s sequel doesn\u2019t just do parkour, but also exploration, scavenging, stealth, survival horror, first-person melee and branching narrative. Every part of that equation must be balanced with the rest, and none can take precedence\u2014since variety in activities is a central tenet of the open-world formula. But looking back on the year, I\u2019m grateful to Neon White for letting me skip to the good bit. Even if it did highlight just how many hours I\u2019ve flushed down the u-bend.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}White hot<\/h2>\n
White hot<\/h2>\n