Hello there, fellow zombie hunters. Dying Light is upon us. Is the intense difficulty curve getting to you too? Here are some of the best techniques I’ve found to help get me through the night in the undead wasteland of Harran. Heck, maybe even survive the whole next day, too. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
I’ve only managed to put 15 hours or so into Dying Light so far, so I don’t consider these tips comprehensive by any measure. They’re also heavily skewed towards the beginning of the game, which is by far the hardest part. I plan to follow up with advanced gameplay tips and tricks once we’ve all sunk more time into this vast zombie-riddled adventure. In the meantime, please let me know if you’ve found any useful tricks as well.
Alright, let’s get down to the brain pickings. (See what I did there?)
Pay No Attention To The Story
Many players are saying that you can burn through Dying Light‘s main campaign in 10-12 hours if you really want to. But the story is so bland that there’s really no point to playing the game like that. Give yourself some room to breathe. Once you do that, the game gets a lot more fun.
Take Your Time With The Side-Quests
Side-quests are just as dull as main quests story-wise, but they’re also just as much fun in every other aspect. They’re also a great resource for experience points. Whenever you come across NPCs in one of Harran’s safe zones, see if they want to talk. That usually means they have an errand for you.
To Unlock Co-Op: Do Spike’s First Mission, Then Sleep
Dying Light’s online co-op mode isn’t immediately available. You have to do a few preliminary missions first. Don’t fret if there’s no “invite friends” option presenting itself when you first start the game.
Juggle A Lot Of Different Quests At The Same Time
Pretty much every mission I’ve played in Dying Light starts with someone imploring you to travel to some point on the map, flip a switch or pick up a box (sometimes a satchel), and then return for a reward. Once you’ve gotten past the earliest missions, quests become more intricate by making you go to more than one spot on the map to interact with something. The game’s checkpoint system is nicely granular, meanwhile, which means that your progress saves each incremental step on your fetch-quest-y journey. The minimap even highlights nearby areas that are critical to any of your ongoing missions regardless of which one you’re technically pursuing. You can save yourself a lot of schlepping back and forth by taking on a ton of different quests (like, as many as you can find), and then deciding the order in which to approach them based on the relative proximity of their checkpoints.
There’s No Fast Travel
Yep. Just gonna have to get used to that.
Pay Close Attention To Time
Dying Light’s world runs on a day-night cycle, and things change a lot depending on which of the two time frames you’re in. Not having a fast-travel option means that you either have to make it back to a safehouse before night begins or face an army of ultra-powerful super-zombies that will one-hit kill you whenever they get the chance. If you don’t want to find yourself stranded on the far side of town with miles of angry super-zombies between you and the nearest safe area, stick to a strict schedule. You can check the time of day by opening up the in-game menu — its the little clock face on the far right of the screen. The game also gives you plenty of warnings when night is approaching, so make sure to heed them.
Don’t Die. It Can Fuck Up Your XP
Ok, so obviously you don’t want to die in any game like this. But Dying Light has a uniquely vindictive way to punish you for dying. Whenever Crane is killed, experience points are deducted from his survivor skillset — the specific amount varies depending on how he died. It’s not so insanely cruel that you actually go down in your overall level. But if you get stuck in a rough patch and die more than three or four times, you can easily end up losing almost an entire level’s worth of progress.
In other words: be careful! It’s much, much better to run away than try and die a hero’s death.
Use Nighttime To Your Advantage
It might feel like you’re helpless and terrified once the sun sets, but you actually have a few things going for you. First and foremost, just travelling around outside at night is a great way to gain experience. Running away from super-zombies is one of the quickest ways to level up Crane’s agility skills — as long as you make it back to a safehouse in one piece at the end of a chase. And if you make it through a whole night outside, your survival skills will get an even larger boost.
Secondly, Crane’s attack strength and movement speed both double at night. This makes for some good opportunities to take out monsters who’ve been giving you trouble during the day, but only — and this is key — if you can do so without attracting the night-time super-zombies. I’ve waited until night to clear out tough interior areas of quest-lines, for instance.
Don’t Stress About Not Having A Gun
You’ll see NPCs with guns very early on in Dying Light. You may even run into bandits outside who attack you with them. Getting a gun of your own takes a long time. And once you do, they’re really not all that useful. Ammo is extremely scarce, and the noise alone makes the risk of using them outweigh any possible reward the vast majority of the time. Melee combat is very much the core of this game, so make improving your skills and equipment in that category a much higher priority than firearm proficiency.
Capture Safe Houses Whenever You Can
Safe houses are basically smaller versions of the friendly outposts from Far Cry 4. Whenever you capture one, you get a new spot on the map that you can escape to, rest in, and spawn into if you die. These are all very useful assets to have in a particular section of Harran, so the more outposts you have, the better. Capturing one normally involves fighting your way through a tough set of zombies, though. You should check out any unclaimed outpost that pops up on your mini-map with a bright red house-shaped icon. But you should also ask yourself how good a chance you have of successfully capturing it before picking a fight with some angry monsters.
Don’t Repair Weapons Until You Absolutely Have To
Weapon durability in Dying Light works a little differently than it did in Dead Island. This time around, each weapon comes with a specific number of “repairs” allotted to it, meaning that you’re only able to fix it back up once its broken a handful of times. Don’t let any of a weapon’s zombie-hitting power go to waste by pressing the repair button (triangle on the PS4) before the game literally tells you: this weapon is broken, fix it.
Be Stingy With Your Weapon Upgrades And Modifications
Since every weapon has a limited lifespan, don’t waste hard-earned crafting ingredients on something that only has one or two repairs left in it. You’re better off using such a weapon until it’s officially beyond repair and then dismantling it. That gives you metal parts, which are a key ingredient for repairing and crafting weapons.
Try To Keep All Three Skill Types Around The Same Level
I suspect that different abilities will find specific abilities to be particularly useful depending on their individual play-style, so I have a hard time recommending specific abilities to “focus on” per se. In general, the most important thing to keep in mind is that you’re at your most powerful when you’re using all of Crane’s myriad abilities in combination with one another. So don’t lean to heavily on, say, parkour over melee (i.e., agility over power). Make sure you’re making progress in all three skill sets at the same time.
Don’t Forget To Kick. A Lot.
Speaking of weapon durability, the best way to enhance it is to only use a weapon when you absolutely have to. Sort of like the repairs, actually. Every single hit chips away at a weapon’s life-span. And it eats away at Crane’s attack stamina, too. Kicking zombies, on the other hand, doesn’t cost Crane any stamina. And as far as I can tell, his leg hasn’t started to show any wear and tear yet. Whenever possible, you should kick a zombie off their feet before using any other, more powerful tool to attack them.
Aim For The Head
Once a zombie is on the ground, it’s very easy to hit them right where it hurts: in the noggin. Reserve your best weapons for these sorts of killing blows. If you begin attacking a zombie or group of zombies with your best stuff, it’s very easy to go through an entire weapon (or even two or three) whacking at a monster’s rib cage or shoulders. Blows like that don’t deal enough damage to make the trade-off with a weapon’s durability worth it. Again, this is why it’s so important to always keep kicking.
Make Note Of Store Locations
There are a lot of “safe zones” in Harran, but not all safe zones are created equally. Safehouses are usually just a room with a dirty mattress on the floor. Only the most strongly fortified and well populated safe zones have merchants in them. Before heading to a particularly safe zone, be sure to check for a “$US” symbol on the map if you need to buy or sell anything.
Always Buy: Crafting Supplies, Blueprints, Medkits
Vendors demand a high price for weapons. You won’t be able to afford most of what they sell for a while. Don’t worry about that — you can always scrounge around outside for more baseball bats and hammers. The things you should scoop up the moment you see a merchant selling them are all the cheap odds and ends they have at the store.
Be On Constant Lookout For Loot
Crafting ingredients, or any kind of loot, really, are much harder to come by in Dying Light than they were in the Dead Island games. Every little bit helps. Finding things like metal parts, gauze, or string are particularly useful for weapon-making purposes. But seemingly useless items like coffee and cigarettes also fetch a high price with Harran’s vendors.
Ration Medkits Carefully
Medkits are in very short supply at the beginning of the game. When Crane’s been seriously injured, his health only recharges to 25% of its maximum value. Given these two factors, you should use health packs very sparingly. Unless you know you’re heading straight back into combat, it’s better to rely on Crane’s parkour abilities to make it to a safehouse where he can rest to regain his health for free. It’s not that hard to travel between different safe zones without taking any damage once you get a hang of the parkour controls.
Stock Up On Lockpicks And Firecrackers
Lockpicks let you open chests with the best loot. Throwing firecrackers distracts zombies and draws them away from stuff you’re trying to get to. Except for maybe medkits, these are the two most important consumable items in the game by far. Thankfully, you can carry a ton of both. Make sure you have a healthy amount in your inventory every time you visit a merchant.
Firecrackers Are A Cheap And Easy Way To Kill Exploding Zombies
One of Dying Light’s special zombie classes is this gross gasbag sort of thing that attacks by walking up to you and self-destructing. The best way to deal with these guys is to take them out from afar so you don’t run the risk of ending up inside their blast radius. Dropping a firecracker near one tricks it into exploding, which is a great method because a) it’s cheaper than using real weapons, and b) firecrackers also lure other zombies into the blast radius, so you can take out a whole crowd at once.
Pairing Them With Molotovs Works Well Too
I mean, luring a bunch of undead into a small area and then setting them all on fire is pretty much the oldest trick in the zombie-killing playbook, right?
Loud Noises Bring Out The Fast Zombies, And You Don’t Want That
One specific class of zombies in Dying Light called “Virals” are incredibly fast and incredibly deadly. Unlike normal zombies who shamble around slowly and stupidly, Virals sprint non-stop, climb over barriers, and dodge your attacks. They’re peppered throughout Harran like all the other bad guys, but loud noises are what really bring them out in droves. Explosions, gunshots, even the noise you make when landing a jump too hard will usually result in three or four Virals showing up to attack you at once. Keep this in mind whenever bringing out heavy machinery like grenades or firearms: they might help you take out one big scary monster, but using them comes at a cost.
You Can Run Through Zombie Crowds, Just Don’t Let Them Catch You
Using Dying Light’s parkour effectively is often a matter of maintaining a proper level of momentum. Standard zombies aren’t very fast, agile, or spatially aware, so it’s not that hard to move around streets and other areas that are crowded with them. You only run into a problem if you pass within reaching distance of one, at which point they will grab you and start doing this:
If there’s a solid crowd of zombies around you when this happens, you can easily be overwhelmed. Plot your moves carefully to find openings in a zombie horde and sprint through them in time.
Use Height To Isolate Virals
Remember those sprinting zombies I was talking about a minute ago? Well, they become a much bigger threat than they already are if they find you in the thick of a zombie mob. Regular zombies can’t climb the same way Virals can, though. So if you find yourself getting swamped with both kinds of zombies at the same time, climb on top of the closest bus, minivan, or makeshift hut that you can find. Only the Virals will follow you up there, and it’s much easier to deal with them on their own.
Actually, Use Height For Everything
Having parkour and a corresponding agility skill-tree to Dying Light is as clear a sign as they will ever be that avoiding physical conflict with bad guys is a totally viable option in this game. Often, it’s the very best option. If you ever end up in a sticky situation, the first thing you should ask yourself is: “What’s the quickest way I could put some distance between myself and this thing that’s eating me?” More often than not, the best answer is: “Get over and above them.” Scrambling onto a bus or up the side of a building opens up countless avenues to either escape or redouble your attack. Heck, I even survived a recent Viral onslaught by climbing up a random telephone poll and waiting for them to wander off.
Hiding out at the top of a telephone poll might make you feel like a cat who got stuck in a tree. But you know what? It also gets the job done. Plus: who’s around to judge you during the zombie apocalypse anyways?
Try To Figure Things Out On Your Own Before Looking Online
It’s important to keep in mind that Dying Light is supposed to be punishing and difficult to understand — especially at first. Its steep difficulty curve is a big part of what makes it so scary. This fear, in turn, is what motivates you to think and act creatively in order to figure out more efficient and effective ways to survive. Discovering increasingly complex techniques to do so has been the defining part of the game for me so far. If you find yourself getting stuck by a specific point in some mission or frustrated with how quickly one type of zombie keeps killing you, I highly recommend giving yourself at least a half-dozen tries to figure out a solution before looking for outside help. Every time you pull something off entirely on your own in this game, it feels pretty damn rewarding.
That’s all I’ve got for the moment. But if you’re playing the game too and think I missed anything, don’t hesitate to reach out. I plan to keep updating this post as I continue to work on my review of Dying Light.
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.
Comments
25 responses to “Tips For Playing Dying Light”
I am not sure if it has been mentioned elsewhere but another tip is to pay close attention to the virals when you are fighting them. The audio is super creepy, quiet often you can here them beg for their lives when you kick them back. Helpful to remember that they aren’t technically zombies, but rather it is a variation of the rabies virus and some of them are more human than others.
1: Your attack and speed does NOT double at night. The EXP you earn doubles at night. Regular mobs also spawns less at night – if you find a mass of zombies near a safe house, and it’s close to night, wait till the time switches then hurl some molotovs for quick power XP. Don’t expect to find farmable hordes at night time, except in a few very difficult to get to places.
2: Medkits are plentiful so long as you loot liberally and don’t waste your money. Every merchant as 2 available at $200 a pop, and they’re made easily with gauze and alcohol – both plentiful if you’re a liberal looter. You can get a skill early which doubles the amount of items you make while crafting, meaning you can make 2 medkits for every 1 Gauze and Alcohol.
Medkits heal 100 hp. Do the math and figure out if it’s worth it. No point running to a base to rest when you can just medkit it up and continue on your way, no point resting if it’s not worth using a medkit. Just pick your fights carefully so you don’t need to use one every 30 seconds.
3: Don’t mass lockpicks. You probably won’t need more than 30 in stock at any given time. I bought a stack of 99, and my counter has not gone below 99+ since the first two hours of the game, and I am terrible with lockpicking. I break at least one on any given lock of medium or higher. They’re found everywhere.
4: Check your skill trees and plan. There are skills which give you extra abilities, and passive boosts, which can make all the difference. One skill gives you a good chance to avoid using a repair slot when restoring a weapon – this can make a huge difference to those glorious crafted weapons.
5: Horde cash. It buys you rare ingredients, better weapons, and medkits. Save up for what you need, not what you want. That axe look pretty nice? Well, you’re about to level and unlock a whole new tier of weapons. Save your money for something you’re going to invest in.
6: Airdrops are everything, but horde those supplies. Because death robs you of survivor XP, its better to horde the airdrop supplies until you can turn in a bunch of them at once. You get a level (or 2, in one case) all at once and save yourself losing that hard-earned xp. They also contain both flares and medkits.
7: Craft liberally. Don’t save your craft ingredients because weapons are disposable anyway. Give yourself the edge you need when you can get it – just don’t waste it on damaged weapons. Make sure your weapon is fresh and new, and is something you’re happy to use until its durability is gone.
8: Be stingy with weapon repairs, but be smart. Don’t repair your weapons until the meter is in the red, but don’t let them break either, because the last thing you want is to be useless in a fight.
9: Guns won’t help you at night. They’ll just make everything worse. If you want to beat the deadliest virals, you’re gonna need a very hefty melee weapon and some flares. The UV torch is more useful against the player zombies than the NPC ones. My weapon currently does 2200 damage, and it still takes upwards of six hits to kill the toughest virals at night.
10: Level parkour whenever possible. It’s the one tree you will want to up as quick as possible, because each level allows for faster climbing and longer running. it also unlocks extra agility boosts like vertical wall-climbing, using zombies as spring boards, and a roll which mitigates fall damage from certain heights. It’s also the hardest to level as the game progresses, so climb everything you can.
11: Unlock every safehouse you can. It should be among the first of things you do, once you’re confident you can fight the zombies to clear it out. Having every safehouse unlocked makes night-runs less stressful and more exhilirating, as you have options for safety and escape.
Excellent response, a better lot of tips than the main article 🙂 have an upvote, I might add this if it’s ok! Great pickup with #1 btw.
12: Low on loot? Firecrackers and traps make for the easiest way to get quick loot. Open up all the traps you can in the skill tree. Car Traps and gate traps are perfect for this. Throw a firecracker onto them, set off the trap when zombies are on them. It might seem bleedingly obvious, but ARE you doing it? You can get heaps of money and heaps of parts doing this, not to mention random weapons zombies may carry.
Why is the first few points saying the game story is horrible, side quest is horrible, just ignore them and kill zombies lol
I find the story actually quite good, opinion disguised as a “tip” no doubt
Exactly. I just had a *Spoiler*
character die by getting bittenthat was actually quite emotional. That never happened for me in Farcry 4, Borderlands Prequel, Mordor or even GTA V. Not one of those eliceted a genuine response from me. DL seems to have gone for the personal conflicted approach, telling a really good story. Sure its cliche loaded but so was GTA V and that worked too.Story is good. Side quests and random events are fun. Kill zombies a lot. Techlands made a game angled towards fun!
yeah im really starting to think that people are saying a story sucks because its not on par with GoT or something these days. The story and especially the voice acting in this game is bloody decent. its not terrible or poor at all and troy bakers preformance during that scene was fucking fantastic.
No, we are not comparing the story to Shakespeare, it is genuinely cliche with some awful voice acting.
Dead Island Riptide was a fun game with technical issues. Dying Light is a technically good game that isn’t all that fun (read:grind)
In your opinion. Of course opinions can be wrong…
Get the zombie vault skill and the skill that heals you as you perform acrobatics ASAP. The first skill lets you vault up to stuff by running and the second boosts your health by running and climbing. Easy way to not have to worry about that pesky bit of lost health.
Zombie vault is brilliant. Recommend leg break too.
get the boost skill in the survival tree too… makes night time a slight bit easier thanks to the night vision potion.. no need to use your torch oh and gt camo too
I honestly bought Dying Light because a friend was really excited about it and I figured Co-op would be a bit of fun, never liked the Dead Island games (or 90% of the other similar zombie/survival games around).
About 20-25 hours in now though and I’m still loving it. Combat and movement feels great, quests and challenges are usually fun/interesting and the story is even pretty good IMO (I think the tip to take from that one up the top is, don’t focus only on the story missions, just do them when you get to them).
Another tip I’d suggest (although it’s slightly late-game), get the Stomp ability. The description makes it sound kinda crap but it makes killing the fast ones soooooo easy, just jump on a van/building and when they try to climb up, you stomp on them, instant death.
Also vault + drop attack is fun 😛
Plus, Ground pound + Stomp = an awesome way to clear out an area QUICK lol
Should also mention that ground pound and whirlwind only works with 2handed blunt weapons ( rebar club, slegde hammers and Axes) they don’t work with 2handed swords
Thanks for that. Kinda dissapointing, I was hoping to replace my beefy two-handed axe with a badass sword when one showed up.
OH and pro-tip for ANYONE playing with a PS4 controller. The game supports it natively. TURN OFF DS4 or whatever program you’re using, you’ll then be able to click the touch pad for the inventory etc and it will come up with all proper buttons on screen instead of 360 controls!
i dont have a ps4 controller but that is definately a tip that should of been in the article.
This comment section is turning into a better tips article than the article lol
HAHAHA i actually was going to post this exact comment below.
thats probably due to the fact that we have been playing more than them.. review copies only arrived the day before.
That’s pretty neat. I really hope the developers know how much we like the game.
Use the environment to kill zombies. Kick them into spikes wherever you can.
Man, this one’s a good one. Actually makes me more inclined to buy the thing, and stayed clear of most spoilers.