Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a wonderful experience for a single player. There’s no doubt about that. The action is enjoyable and dynamic, the parkour feels smooth and effortless, and the story and characters will suck you in. But Dying Light 2 also allows you to play with up to four people. And while I can say I’ve had a great time with what this co-op offers, some players may be too focused on some of the drawbacks and limitations, like how the quest progression is only saved for the host. Nevertheless, after spending hours killing zombies, running across rooftops, and protecting people, I can definitely tell you that Dying Light 2 co-op is the way to go with this one.
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Distractions
Picture it: your next mission tells you to find an access point at night. But when you find it, you realize it’s a locked door with dozens of zombies idling around it. What do you do? Sure, you could throw an endless barrage of coins to try to distract them or even just jump in hacking and slashing. But there’s a better way around this conundrum—your co-op buddies. What’s more tempting than a walking meat bag?
There are plenty of missions that ask you to pick a locked door or crate surrounded by a mob of zombies. Of course, in single-player mode, you’d most likely have to kill each and every one. And a lot of these missions occur at night when the zombies walk the streets instead of hiding inside abandoned buildings, making it all the more difficult. But what makes it a whole lot easier is when you have one person distract the zombies while the other takes the time to pick the lock. This goes for many other situations as well—it’s always nice to have at least one person completing the objective while another fights zombies or even other human enemies.
Voting
For most decisions that come with the story missions and side quests, there are multiple dialogue choices, both crucial and not. Some just lead to more information or background. But there are plenty that will affect future missions available to you, how the City changes, and the story overall. So, there are many choices to be made, and it isn’t just the host who gets to make them all… sort of. All players have the ability to vote on the decision or response the protagonist, Aiden, will make. Ultimately, the host has the final say, but it’s interesting to see what everyone thinks. There are some hard decisions the game asks of you, so it’s fun to see who approves of what, and it’ll probably produce some heated conversations. Similarly, there are just times you want to skip some content by declining missions or being dismissive, so the voting allows everyone a say in the matter so long as you have a good game master.
Gameplay
There’s already a lot you can do when it comes to Dying Light 2’s action. The range of weapons and attacks you can use never get boring. But with all the action, it may be a chore to watch your stamina. Dodging, dashing, and attacking all use up stamina. And unless you’re specifically on the prowl for inhibitors that can upgrade your stamina and health permanently or wear clothes that boost them, things can get dicey when you have a lot of enemies to kill or boss battles to win. It’s also hard to sneak around when you have so many players; someone will alert a Howler. There’s no doubt about that. But with Dying Light 2 co-op, more people mean more attacks. When someone’s out of stamina, another player can take their place. Coordination is easy, and it can be entertaining to chain attacks. Someone may stagger an enemy while another player may use that stagger to vault over and slam into another enemy. It’s just a whole lot of coordinated chaos and is honestly where the co-op experience shines the most.
While there are some limitations, the benefits of playing Dying Light 2 co-op outweigh them easily. With Dying Light 2’s servers, you can easily buddy up with random people. But personally, I really recommend playing with your buddies. With even the smallest amount of coordination, the gameplay becomes extremely fun and much more manageable. And seeing who sides with what faction makes for some interesting conversations.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
