Zombies have become a borderline oversaturated staple of nerdom in recent years, no doubt. That said, these people-monsters have always seemed to work particularly well in video games — even at their most painfully average.
Dying Light, as many already know, represents a good bit of Zom-slaughtering chaos at an above average level. With The Following — an expansion that continues the story, but more so of an off-shoot — the game is now another notch higher in stature.
In case you are completely unfamiliar, Dying Light follows a mysterious badass Nathan Drake/Lara Croft-esque dude who gets thrown into the middle of a zombie-infested city by some government entity in order to gain information from the natives; and as you might guess, things do not go according to play. The game as a whole is basically a combination of Dead Island and Tomb Raider — a first person romp with a whole lot of parkour.
Now, if that sounds fun to you, that’s because it is. Though, on a personal level, the parkour stuff can be a bit distracting. Granted, DL‘s parkouring is also one of the most unique elements and oddly logical elements of the game when you consider that its zombie universe. However, The Following seems to be the best bit of the game so far.
Story-wise, this expansion has our hero Kyle Crane learning from a survivor of one of the creepy cult groups living outside the quarantined city of Harran who has managed to gain control of the virus. With the Tower running short on Antizin (a serum that curbs the symptoms turning into a zombie), and Dr. Camden’s efforts to come up with a cure have proved useless, Crane figures he should look into this whole “immunity” thing. Once in the The Walking Dead Season 2-style countryside, he discovers that a bunch of the survivors out there have converted to a religious cult called the Children of the Sun, which is as creepy as it sounds.
As for the gameplay, The Following is the most clear, most fun bit of the story I have personally tackled. Granted, at least in my estimation, it is very derivative of Dead Island; but that is far from a bad thing coming from a guy who really enjoyed that game. The bits of gameplay are challenging and amusing, as the countryside visuals are nothing short of awesome. The area in which this expansion exists is — for whatever reason — much more inspiring than the far more elaborate city that the main game takes place in.
For reasons such as these, it would be very advisable for those of you who have not picked up the game yet to grab the hyper-ultra-mega edition of the game that includes all of the DLC so far and most importantly, The Following. For those that already have Dying Light, shell out for the expansion, because it is way worth it.
