I’ve yet to find an expansion pack or DLC that has made me want to tell the world about it. Most of these efforts end up being half-hearted efforts to placate gamers until a sequel is released, or to bump up the price of the original and say, “Look! You get so much more with this edition. Wow. Much popular. Such success. Buy now.” Nonetheless, having owned and loved the original Dying Light, I looked forward to seeing what Dying Light: The Following Enhanced Edition had to offer.
Right off the bat, though, I was annoyed by the inability to import previously saved data – you have to download an update, which is close to 4GB, before you’re able to do so. I’m unsure of what goes through a game developer’s mind, but when I’m in the mood to play a game, I don’t want to wash dishes first, jog around the block three times, take a five-hour nap, and scream at the noisy children in the complex before I’m able to play with basic functionality. If you’re a developer who doesn’t add a simple ‘import saved data’ function right from the get-go for an expansion pack, don’t expect me to throw extra moolah at you either, noob. It’s like me ordering a pizza and receiving only cheese and tomato in the box while you make the base available at a later stage – it’s pointless.
When Telkom finally decides it’s time, the option to play The Following (without having to complete the tedious prologue again) is made available. A pop-up notification does advise you it’s best to have a character with a Survivor level of 12; however, most Dying Light gamers seem to suggest level 18 to be on the safe side. And this warning is there for a good reason, too. The sewer escape and rock-climbing are simple enough, but when you hit those farmlands, those zombies are next level pissed and the storm looks like one of those horror stories from Black Friday. The human enemies don’t make your life any easier, so you’ll have to apply some Metal Gear stealth into your arsenal and apply more discreet methods to your kills if you want to escape those snipers.
Much like the main game, The Following looks gorgeous in a post-apocalyptic sort of way. The open world is vast and you’ll find yourself mesmerised by the new terrains. Throw in the ability to cruise around in a buggy and mow down zombies and it feels a lot like a road trip to the coast. Yet, the novelty wears off about as quickly as the Batmobile in Arkham Knight did. The buggy is a nifty feature, but when it becomes the main focus of the game, I don’t know if I’m that big of a Need for Zombie Speed fan. While Dying Light focused on parkour and leaping from rooftop to rooftop, The Following moves away from this and more into a Far Cry territory.
One of the biggest frustrations of the main game was how the weapons broke faster than the South African economy. Two strikes to a zombie’s head and it’s curtains for your hammer. While the enhanced edition does include an array of new weapons, it does seem like they were all designed by ACME and fail calamitously much like before. This does make the game more challenging, but it also borders on ludicrous at times.
It’s difficult to sum up my overall thoughts of Dying Light: The Following Enhanced Edition. It contains everything that made Dying Light great and a little bit more, but is it worth it for someone who bought the original to invest in this expansion? I’m not entirely convinced it is.
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