Dying Light: The Beast was once going to be an expansion to the main game, but it grew to be so big that developer Techland eventually spun it off into a standalone experience. It’s not Dying Light 3, but the team told me it feels The Beast is the best version of what the Dying Light series has been since it debuted a decade ago. I played 30 minutes of The Beast during Summer Game Fest Play Days 2025, and though its story still seems to be a comic-booky saga I struggle to get invested in, I’m definitely on board for some of what’s it’s bringing–and bringing back–to the series.

My demo started just before nightfall, and if you know Dying Light, you know it’s not so easy to survive when the sun goes down. The new map in The Beast features a lot of forest area, which I really liked playing in. A developer told me the game is meant to be scarier than before, and the signature parkour gameplay has actually been dialed back a little bit to match The Beast protagonist Kyle Crane’s canon abilities. He can’t jump quite as far as Dying Light 2: Stay Human’s Aiden Caldwell, which grounds the game a bit, even as so much of it remains over-the-top.

Crane is a fan-favorite protagonist from the first game and returns to this one on a revenge mission, chasing down the man who ruined his life. The story in these games resonates with a great number of its fans, but I’ve not counted myself among them. I don’t expect The Beast to change that, but the series has always achieved its core gameplay goals, and that aspect seems well in place once more.

One change is the return of guns, which have never been (and still won’t be) in abundant supply. But because Crane will encounter some heavily armed soldiers at times, players will be able to take their weapons, like an assault rifle, shotgun, and–totally new to the series–a flamethrower that worked well as a room-clearing tool.

Driving is back, too, which Techland previously introduced in Dying Light: The Following, an expansion for the original Dying Light. Instead of the buggy featured in the expansion, I drove a hefty pick-up truck, which helped me quickly transport some materials I needed for a mission. This was much better than lugging them by hand, and the driving mechanics felt great. I learned Techland used to make rally racing games before Dying Light, and the same designer in charge of those mechanics is still at Techland today and helped bring the driving gameplay to life in Dying Light: The Beast. Driving was a lot of fun, and though the map will sometimes naturally restrict where players can drive, the opportunities to do so don’t feel like missing the point despite the series’ emphasis on running and parkour moves.

One of the Dying Light’s great strengths has always been the open-endedness of navigating its world. The parkour makes the landscape your playground, and I got to mess with multiple strategies for problem-solving in one encounter. Spotting some armed guards up ahead, I sneakily dashed away to scale a nearby building, dodging zombies at the ground level. When I reached the top, I pulled out a decoy grenade and sent the undead horde toward the guards. As they cut into each other’s numbers, I crept onward toward my objective. Up ahead, more guards rested atop the building, and it was here I leaned into the game’s best combat maneuver: the dropkick.

I said I haven’t always enjoyed the series’ comic-booky side, but here, I was all too pleased to missile-dropkick anyone and everyone who stood in my way. Like the I Think You Should Leave sketch in which Tim Robinson’s character refuses to stop fake-pouring water on his colleague during a work seminar, I sensed the dev accompanying me on my demo was astounded at how committed to the move I was. My melee weapons didn’t degrade, my ammo was plentiful, all because I just couldn’t stop dropkicking every face I saw, be it grossly mushy or tactically masked.

I played the second game like this at times, too. The physics of the move is too satisfying to ignore. It’s just too much fun. I know I was sort of defying how the demo was expected to go, but I’ve played a lot of Dying Light over the years, so I felt like I could take this moment and really indulge my base desires: dropkicking every ambulating humanoid I encountered like prime Dolph Ziggler.

“If you kill that guy, you’ll get his gun,” the dev told me before I dropkicked the armed soldier off of a roof.

“The bow and arrow is a one-shot if you hit them in the head,” he later said, hinting I should give it a whirl, before I unequipped it and launched several guys into a vent with my feet.

“Now that you’ve enhanced the axe, it’ll immediately jump to your level. It was a Level 6 weapon, but you’re Level 9, so enhancing it has made it a Level 9. We wanted players to be able to take their favorite weapons with them throughout the game if they really find one they love,” he explained. “I see,” I replied, before I pocketed it and dropkicked several more zombies into a wall.

I apologized, but the move is simply too good, I said. He seemed to get it.

Dying Light: The Beast benefits from years of updates to Dying Light 2, while also pulling in elements from the first that Techland wanted to revisit. This mix of old and new feels like it’s going to make the 20-hour game (40 to 60 for completionists) well worth it if you’re already invested in the series. I’m looking forward to driving more, exploring a new, scarier environment, and testing the weapon enhancement system in those rare moments when I elect to do anything other than Roddy Piper the undead in every street, rooftop, and forest I run through.

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