A sense of propulsive urgency pushes me through Dying Light: The Beast, and it's not just because I'm psyched to see more Kyle Crane. When I'm not playing it, I find myself thinking about it. About the grisly flesh-lined cave pulsating with quiet, kinetic danger. About the one high-level side quest that wants me to hunt some creature called a Yaga in the dead of night. About the people and places I run into while scaling the leafy urban wasteland of Castor Woods, each with an often heart-rending story of survival to complement Kyle's own journey through hell and back (and back again).
Dying Light: The Beast is a stunningly refined action-horror experience on every level – improved nighttime terrors, traversal, and visual fidelity are a handful of noticeable evolutions since the days of Dying Light 2. But most of all, I'm hypnotized by how Techland pulls off such a rich story across 20 or so main quests and drives it towards a bombastic, immensely satisfying finale. Even the side missions feel transformative, not only to this game, but to the evolving face of Dying Light as a whole. After 52 hours in Castor Woods, I agree with franchise director Tymon Smektała on this one; The Beast really is Dying Light 3.
