Dying Light 2 is the perfect ‘7 out of 10’ game

Most of my favorite video games are what I call “7/10” games. To be clear, “7/10” isn’t a literal score. (We don’t do scores at Polygon anymore, thank the heavens.) No, “7/10” represents a creative philosophy shared by a small, but precious collection of video games. Open-world zombie basherDying Light 2 is my latest “7/10” game — and I love it for that.

“7/10”s tend to be mechanically ambitious but financially prohibited. They might be trying to find a new way of playing, or they may try to do everything at once. There’s something magnetic about these games — Earth Defense Force, Driver: San FranciscoPlease see the following: Death Stranding — that have the confidence to take risks, and not just fail, but fail spectacularly.

Eloquently explaining why or how “7/10” works is a headache unto itself because this method of game design is akin to YouTube creators who specialize in trick-shot videos. They don’t throw a basketball off a building and into the hoop because they’re uniquely better at basketball than everyone else; they hit the shot because they’re committed to putting in the time and failing a lot along the way.

Image: Techland via Polygon

Dying Light 2 falls in the “jack of all trades, master of none” camp. Although the story takes between 20 to 30 hours, it could keep you entertained for up to 500. That’s not a hyperbolic number: It’s the literal amount of time the developers at Techland said players would need to see everything in the game. I spent my first 12 hours hurtling through the game’s town, only to learn – to my surprise and intimidation — that a much larger metropolis, replete with skyscrapers, had been casting a literal shadow over my disguised prologue of an adventure.

500 hours sounds like a lot, but it’s nothing when you consider that 20 years of AAA video game design has been crammed into a single game. Dying Light 2There are fort raids and multiple skill trees. You can also loot and craft, as well as a 24-hour cycle which determines what missions you have access to.

The video game meat comes with a selection of salads featuring upgradable skills taken from many iconic series. So far, I’ve mastered the parkour of Mirror’s EdgeThe wall is a continuous line. TitanfallAnd the glider of The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild. Every few hours I think to myself, “OK, I get what this game wants to be,” and at that exact moment, the game violently flips the table and says, “You don’t know me! You can’t define me!” like a teenager that wants love but doesn’t yet know how to receive it.

Image: Techland via Polygon

You can never expect it to love you when it feels so many emotions. It has such feelings! A fascist paramilitary organization is pitted against a uneasy coalition of freedom fighters. Characters make stupid decisions and reverse their course, just like the BioShock series. This is to prove that both sides can be quite bad. I hope you like angst.

Your role is that of Aidan. He’s an early contender in the Most Generic Video Game Protagonist for 2020. He’s voiced by Jonah Scott, who is great as Legoshi in the Netflix anime Beastars, but is handcuffed here by a script that traps his voice, Ursula-style, in what I can only describe as “the Nolan North Realm.” The result is like a soup composed of Nathan Drake, Commander Shepherd, and the myriad “I’m sorry sir, I forget your name” leads of Call of Duty.

Very little of this works on its own, because as you might guess, it’s difficult to do any one of the above things well, let alone All of them All at once. But of course, there’s the twist: it works. If we ignore all the details, it’s possible to play this game. Works.

Image: Techland via Polygon

Dying Light 2’sCreators attempt to create so many that it, like the rule of percents, it It hasIt will eventually work. Everything clicks together at least once per play session. It’s nighttime and I’m filching cigarette cartons from a bodega when suddenly I’m spotted by a jackass ghoul who alerts its brainless friends that a midnight snack will be served. With a flame-throwing battle axe, I cut it open and send its glowing head high above the cash register. In seconds, I’m on the roof, weaving between the undead, racing to a safe house a few hundred meters in the distance.

I’m an amazing superhero who can move at the speed of lightning and have the grace of a dancer.

Those twenty years of video game experiences – the parkour, the wall runs, the zombie hunting, the crafting, hell, even a tacit sense of time management and spatial problem solving – are propelling me closer and closer to my goal. There’s no story at this point. My love for games is the only conversation.

That rush is what makes it so addictive. je ne sais quoi, is when I know a game is “7/10.” Dying Light 2 is all rough edges, but now and then, I comfortably get my arms around it and give it a big ol’ hug. It is obvious that these people love my shit as much as me. It’s clear that they are caring. They care in turn, and so do they.

It’s worth the effort. Definitely. Trick shots are my favorite, even though it took many airballs before I finally got that sweet, sweet swish.