(Credit: Illustration above was drawn/painted & edited by me!)
Hi! If you came to this article expecting me to tell you how Dying Light is overwhelmingly superior to Dead Island…
I’m actually here to tell you why both games are great, why they can be annoying, and why they’re worth playing. As always, the opinions expressed in this article are my own and your experience may differ from mine.
Originally, I was only a fan of Dead Island. 😲
Which, if you go off the opinions of the general gaming community, is somewhat outrageous. For context, I first heard about Dead Island in 2019 while looking for new open world RPGs to play. Given that I’m not a huge fan of zombie games, Dead Island was a pleasant surprise.
After finishing Dead Island & went searching for similar games, Dying Light was lauded as a vast improvement on Dead Island.
As it’s set on the fictional island of Banoi, I found the environment of Dead Island was more fun to explore. Plus, you can drive throughout the main campaign of the game. Dead Island was less mentally taxing with its mechanics (+ hack & slash combat), and in turn, at the time… more enjoyable.
While I came to love Dying Light for its challenging nature…
You only really feel like you can handle yourself in combat & deal with Volatiles later in the game. There’s a steep learning curve for a while. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by zombies even during the day, and I’ll admit I didn’t feel like braving night time ventures until many hours into playing.
Even then – gameplay on PC remains a bit clunky. Especially the parkour element, which can be pretty unreliable when you need it most. Takedown combinations can be difficult to execute quickly on a keyboard. This issue rendered several skill tree perks redundant for me.
Groups of Virals start running after you for no reason (unless you’re able to repeatedly use camouflage). You can dodge Demolishers, yet a glitch can also occur where you’re still knocked down by them. For this reason, I find enemies of Dying Light are more often a nuisance than frightening.
Dead Island’s combat has its issues, too,
Your character takes massive amounts of damage when hit, and melee weapons get damaged quickly. It’s much harder to accumulate Medikits (although there’s plenty of opportunities to replenish your health with cans of soda). Money is more difficult to find in order to repair weapons.
The game isn’t a total cakewalk in comparison to Dying Light, as many people would have you believe. It’s just simpler to deal with the mechanics & the way zombies attack you isn’t as intense. There is no ‘night time’ element where tougher enemies are patrolling, and the difficulty is consistent throughout Dead Island. When your character levels up, so do the zombies.
The weapons & perks system is much better in Dying Light. The grappling hook perk infinitely improves the game experience, and redeems the instances where you suddenly fall during parkour. There are many elements other than hand held combat in the game (such as traps), which assist in combat. Money, however, seems so abundant that it loses purpose when all you need is tons of string & more space for ammo.
By the time of playing Dying Light’s The Following DLC, I was many hours into the game playing co-op with my partner – something that is an important factor.
Both games support co-op, however…
Dead Island’s overall gaming experience isn’t vastly improved by it. Dying Light leans to being a much better experience if you’re playing co-op. Especially if you’re finding the game too difficult. This may seem like a no-brainer to most people who already play co-op (& prefer it).
If a game has a campaign that is just as enjoyable to play in single-player mode – that is a real plus point. Dead Island is just as enjoyable to play alone, although gameplay was designed for up to 4 players. I’d say it’s more enjoyable to play alone, as you’re unable to jointly pick up loot in co-op mode like you can in Dying Light.
Dead Island doesn’t try to force a emotional narrative.
As you can select 1 of 5 different characters in Dead Island, the narrative experience is a bit more generic. Your character has no implied romantic interest in other NPCs.
One thing Dying Light could have done without is trying to force emotional moments throughout the game. There’s little opportunity to become invested in the characters, as you don’t spend much time with any of them.
In total, Rais seems to be the character you have the most interaction with. It would have made sense to focus more on his story as being tragic, rather than the one dimensional villain he amounts to be in game. What small part of his character’s backstory we learn about seems like an afterthought.
A lot of the dialogue in Dying Light can be super cliché at points. It often makes Crane annoying to listen to. As a player you have no control over Crane’s outbursts towards the GRE and Rais. It would have been interesting to have multiple choice endings & the option to react differently. After all, this is a survival horror game… Crane’s bravado isn’t the most realistic approach.
So, where the main difference lies?
While both games are survival horror… Dying Light is more of a survival horror game. Meaning, even on ‘story’ mode, the game requires near constant tactical thinking & persistence.
This is where the comparisons between both games is somewhat misleading. I wouldn’t recommend Dying Light to someone who enjoyed Dead Island without emphasising the difference in gameplay.
For those who aren’t already aware – both Dead Island and Dying Light are from the same developer, Techland.
When Dead Island is regarded as inferior, it’s important to note that Dying Light was not created as a sequel, but as a separate survival horror game (with a much darker tone).
Dead Island is a more easygoing game in a beautiful setting. It fulfilled what I was originally looking for in an open world RPG (which also happened to be a survival horror game).
Being able to explore without zombies making too much of a chore of it is possible in Dead Island. In Dying Light, it’s hard to get a minute’s peace outside of a safe zone.
Once you’ve grappled everywhere in-game & become accustomed to Dying Light’s gameplay, it is hard to enjoy Dead Island the same. Dying Light also has far more replay value thanks to the community events and a fantastic DLC; The Following.
What makes Dying Light more challenging doesn’t make it “better”, just a different gaming experience. The structure & overall difficulty of both games are very different – but make them unique and enjoyable respectively.
(That being said, I’ve put many more hours into playing Dying Light. Many more hours of annoyance mixed in with enjoyment. Now I can’t go back. 😂)
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