Dying Light’s city of Harran, despite being squalid and overrun with zombies, is far from a depressing wasteland. Instead, it offers a vibrant, ambitious open-world playground. Here, buildings are meant to be climbed, the undead can be eliminated in creative ways, and there’s always something intriguing to discover nearby.

However, this becomes apparent only after some time. Initially, you might feel that Dying Light revolves around fleeing from hordes of seemingly unbeatable zombies, but don’t be misled.

Survival can be a struggle in the early hours of the game. Combat feels clumsy at first, with the diverse and menacing zombies absorbing a disturbing amount of damage before going down for good. The jumping mechanics, mapped to shoulder buttons on consoles, can also take some time to get used to.

Getting overwhelmed by zombies is usually a death sentence, especially when nighttime approaches. As day transitions into night, the focus shifts to tense stealth; if discovered, it becomes an adrenaline-fueled sprint for safety. Yet soon enough, you’ll develop a skill set that turns your decaying foes into playful challenges, allowing you to vault over them, execute dramatic slow-motion kills, or lure them into explosive traps.

Nighttime evolves from a period of sheer terror into an opportunity for skill enhancement, thanks to increased XP gain. Once you acclimate to the controls, Dying Light’s first-person parkour becomes fluid and intuitive, making it a joy to weave through the decaying slums and picturesque old-world architecture—so much so that I almost didn’t mind the absence of a fast-travel option.

Combat grows increasingly satisfying, though it retains some awkwardness. Even when expertly dispatching zombies with custom-built, elementally charged weapons, strikes still feel heavy and cumbersome. While firearms become available later, allowing you to pop heads from a distance, their low rate of fire and noise can attract more zombies, making them more of a sporadic quick fix than a game-changing asset. I completed the campaign in over 34 hours, achieving a 68% completion rate.

The story itself is serviceable, but its most surprising aspect may be its predictability. Dying Light sticks to a straightforward narrative with little nuance or hidden agendas among its interesting yet underdeveloped characters and entertainingly cliché villains. In a way, this lack of complexity can be refreshing, even if the end result isn’t particularly remarkable compared to more complex narratives.

A significant portion of my playtime was spent on side quests, which is where the storytelling truly shines. Engaging with random survivors often leads to ordinary tasks like fetch quests or target hunts. More frequently, however, these side quests unfold into multi-part adventures with their own narratives, often escalating into lurid and creepy tales.

For instance, a search for a missing person might evolve into a chilling hunt for unsettling clues in an abandoned apartment, while a routine rescue mission could transform into a trap set by a cunning adversary. These moments are some of Dying Light’s most memorable, enriching the exploration experience.

While the game is entirely playable in single-player mode, it shines even brighter with friends. You can team up with up to three co-op partners to tackle undead hordes or cover each other while picking locks. Although online matchmaking can be hit-or-miss on PS4, once sessions begin, they run smoothly and stably. It’s also advantageous to have friends on hand if your game gets invaded through the Be the Zombie mode, where a random player can enter your world as a super-powered monster with zipline tendrils and zombie-summoning abilities. Playing as this monster is immensely enjoyable, particularly after unlocking some of its more gruesome attacks, though it can feel imbalanced unless you’re facing at least two human players.

Beginning as a tense survival horror experience, Dying Light gradually evolves into a fast-paced, hyper-violent celebration of vertical freedom and zombie destruction. While its main story may be unremarkable, the memorable side quests and the sheer enjoyment of exploring its world more than compensate, making Dying Light one of the most engrossing open-world games I’ve played in a while, zombie-infested or otherwise.