Let's talk about one of my favorite games of all time Dying Light and answer the question, is Dying Light playable in 2025? Now of course my answer is going to be biased, but I think you should give it a chance.
So why should you play it?
To give a summary of why I love Dying Light so much, if you read my article called The Art of Breaking Games and that kind of stuff interests you. You'll find that Dying Light is one of the easiest games to break and is part of the reason I love just playing the base game. Sure, I'll talk about the DLC. But for many years since the game came out in 2014, I never even considered trying it. I have been so satisfied with just playing the base game that I've never even thought to change my experience with the DLC. My brother and I have played through the main campaign dozens of times. We came up with our own challenges ourselves to spice up the gameplay and make it even harder.
Completing the game on the hardest difficulty.
Completing the game on the hardest difficulty only at nighttime.
I streamed playing the game with the attack button unbound, only using kicks and throwables to beat the game.
So, what is Dying Light?
I must give credit to my brother for saying that Dying Light came out in what is perhaps the golden age for parkour zombie games. If it came out at any other time, I don't think that there's a chance that this game could exist. It's nearly impossible to argue that Dying Light occurred in the Goldilocks zone of zombie games and had low chance for success but managed to eke out a little bit anyways. I remember seeing the trailer for it in probably 2013 and falling in love at first sight. Unfortunately the game seemed to fall under the radar of much of the public (probably due to the stiff competition), but I adored it.
The Games B movie narrative gave it a special edge compared to the competition, which seemed to try too hard to have an engaging story in a game where you just wanted to beat the crap out of some zombies.
Dying Light’s story that allows it to stick out like a shining ray of light in a cloud of zombie games for a few reasons.
Firstly, the game takes place in a non-American setting where the majority of the characters are also non-American.
Disappointingly the story boils down to an American dropped from the heavens fighting alone against the force of a vaguely ethnic man, and a pseudo American corrupt rescue initiative to rescue the natives from a force beyond their control. BUTTT that part of the story kind of sucks anyway.
Second, Dying Lights cast of characters are extremely memorable. Including my brother and I's favorite scene where Brecon (an Australian parkour instructor, and leader of a society of refugees held up in a skyscraper) decides to punch a fully functional TV, their only source of news in the zombie apocalypse, because he's mad. Our other favorite character includes Ghazi, who has the most famous line in the game:
“If Mama ain't happy, nobody happy.”
What makes Dying Light unique in 2025?
There are many systems to Dying Light that I believe help it stand out to this day. Dying Light's closest competitor is a game called Dead Island, which was without a doubt more popular. One could call them close cousins. You can think of them as different breeds of the same game. As a matter of fact, they are made by the same developer. I'm not here to hate on the Dead Island franchise. The difference to me is that Dead Island has a strong focus on deliberate extreme combat, violence, and RPG leveling.
One of the saddest, yet also most emblematic symbols of the period is the deluxe edition for Dead Island. It excitedly advertised itself as a headless, well-endowed bust of a zombie woman in an American flag bikini top. This was too much, even for its time.
In contrast, Dying Light is a game that gives the player a lot of freedom. In Dying Light, the name of the game is parkour, climbing, and traversal. It's just as easy to play the game without any combat, assuming you can find the right way around the city. Though admittedly this gets harder the further on you go in the game.
Old Town
This may be a bit of a spoiler, but Dying Light includes a second city (old town), which is a considerable improvement from drop off point. If the first city just has you on your training wheels with some easy jumps and mostly on the ground game play, the second city turns it up a notch to a full European parkour experience. You're traversing over long multi story buildings packed tightly together as if made for you to run on. Suddenly you have this extremely clear difference between the top of the city and the bottom. The ground is littered with zombies, secrets and tough enemies to fight while the top is very light on enemies and easy to traverse. Old town is emblematic of the kind of place Dying Light was meant to be in, and it’s a joy every playthrough to finally get there.
Dying Lights’ Many Secrets
Nothing makes the game feel more complete than being littered with secrets for the player to find. Dying Light is not afraid to break the 4th wall and loves to make references outside of what you’d expect.
For example, one of my favorite secrets in the game is finding a green Mario pipe and going underground to play Mario 1-1 in first person stomping on zombies. If you do manage to complete the level, you unlock a wingsuit that lets you fly around in the game that is not obtainable in any other way. This is extremely rewarding.
The greatest mechanic in any game ever.
I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that Dying Light contains the single greatest mechanic in any videogame ever. Dying light has the greatest dropkick ever created by man.
The secret sauce on this burger is the second upgrade that makes your dropkick even more powerful. After this upgrade, your drop kick acts like a sledgehammer hit to the chest, launching an enemy off whatever building they're standing on. If you do it to an enemy on the ground, they go flying, colliding with cars and other zombies, clearing the path for you.
It goes without saying, in a game that involves fighting zombies and running around rooftops, the opportunity to dropkick a zombie four stories down to the floor below, rag dolling like they've just been hit with a Wrecking Ball is one of the greatest things that's ever been created for a video game,
I dare you to open the game and try.
What are the problems with playing Dying Light in 2025?
This game is old and not only that, this game is also not coded well. It's buggy.
While there are many opportunities for you to play the game in a way that's fun for you and many other opportunities to practice breaking games. The game’s poor programming can mess with your computer in ways that you might not otherwise have intended.
For example, it sometimes just breaks your ability to click on things on your computer. You'll find after playing the game for a while that invariably when you leave the game, you will not be able to touch anything with your mouse. Anything you click on will just not respond to you.
Now, I don't know why this happens, and I don't know the technical reason for how to fix it, but after many hours of messing around with the game I found that just mashing right click anywhere else on the screen gets you out quickly.
The other feature that doesn't quite work, but for technical issues, is the zombie invasion mode. Not only does this not work now, but to be honest, it didn't really work at the game’s release either.
The zombie invasion mode is an interesting gameplay option that never really seemed to take off. As much as I love the idea of asymmetrical gameplay as seen in many other articles. The adrenaline inducing gameplay of playing one of the strongest zombies in the game doesn't quite hit home simply because there were so few opportunities to do so.
Yes, my generous reader, you can only play as an invading zombie during somebody else’s nighttime gameplay. That very much limits the amount of time that you have to invade other players. Not to mention the fact that most people just sleep and skip the night anyway
Almost inevitably, this led to the mode dying pretty much immediately after the game launched.
Now it's 2025. I don't think I would get my hopes up in thinking that anybody will be around to invade your game as you play it. I don't think it's worth it to even try.
Final thoughts.
In my opinion, Dying Light is absolutely worth the purchase anytime in 2025 or the foreseeable future. The game consistently goes on sale almost all the time, and you can grab the deluxe edition for probably $10. The game is up to four players Co-op, and while I've only ever played it with up to two players, it's a blast solo or I'm sure with as many players as you can get to hop on. Though it's worth noting that you're not allowed to play together for the first couple of missions.
Thank you so much for reading. I very much appreciate your support. Don't forget to subscribe for more game reviews and updates and I will see you on the next article. I recommend reading this one next, and don't forget to subscribe.
If mama ain’t happy, nobody happy