Play This: Dying Light’s open-world parkour makes slaying zombies fun

There are probably too many video games focused on zombies out there already, but I guess I can make room for one that's also about parkour.

In a lot of ways, Dying Light doesn't feel especially unique. Not only is it a zombie game in a sea of virtual undead, but it's also basically a successor to the developer's last zombie game, Dead Island (though don't confuse it with the in-development Dead Island 2, which another developer is making). Its combat is similar, and it's similarly an open-world game about bashing zombies with melee weapons as you complete RPG-like quests for various characters.

But the main thing Dying Light has that its predecessor doesn't is its traversal, an almost Assassin's Creed-like freerunning system that works surprisingly well in first-person.

The game weirded me out upfront when it told me to hit the R1 button to jump (I'm playing on PS4) — a button that doesn't usually default to that task. But putting the jump button under your index finger is necessary, because both your thumbs will need to be on the analog sticks at all times. In order to climb up and over ledges you have to be sure to always look where you're running/jumping. Looking up could make the difference between scaling a wall and simply jumping into it like a crazy person.

Running around the world this way works well. So well, in fact, that in many cases it's far easier to run around the swarms of zombies in the streets rather than try to fight them. The combat in Dying Light is fine, but most fights with basic zombies boil down to simply mashing the button to swing your table leg, hammer, shovel or whatever other melee weapon you've acquired (or crafted). You can learn new moves and collect new weapons that shake things up a little, but I didn't find slaughtering the undead to be as satisfying as it is in some other zombie-centric games (specifically Dead Rising 3, in my opinion), so I preferred to stick to the rooftops and leap over danger whenever possible.

Thankfully, Dying Light rewards that. It has an Elder Scrolls-esque progression system where you earn experience points based on what actions you’re performing. So if you’re fighting a lot of enemies you’re going to earn a lot of Power skill points, allowing you to do things like take more damage. If you spend more time running and climbing you’re going to get better at Agility, granting you gifts like more stamina to run longer.

I like being able to run fast for two reasons: 1) There’s not a great fast travel system in the game. You can use a kind-of-hidden system of posters to travel between a few key areas, but you can’t travel at-will between the game’s safe houses.

And 2) It gets really dark at night.

When the light does die in Dying Light, the world gets pretty dangerous. Not only can it be pitch black without your flashlight, but very dangerous (and very fast. and very mobile) enemies patrol the streets after dark, and they will make quick work of you if you’re not ready to take them on.

If you don't want to try surviving alone (and I wouldn't blame you. I've died quite a few times when playing Dying Light), the game's online co-op works pretty well. I've played most of the game solo, but I was able to jump into a friend's game and run around the world with him no problem. The game also prompts you with various potential multiplayer competitions as you play, challenging you to do things like kill more zombies than your friends in a short amount of time.

Frankly, I've been having more fun with Dying Light than I expected to. It's clunky in a few spots, but moving around the city is entertaining and I've enjoyed completing the game's various side quests, some of which feature some surprisingly interesting characters (or at least, more interesting than many RPG side quest givers often are). If you've been looking for a game to enjoy in the slow months of early 2015, you could do worse than Dying Light.

A download code for the PS4 version of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.