Dying Light: The Beast hands-on preview: A stunning survival horror character study that left me bloody and breathless

Dying Light: The Beast has two very surprising inspirations. Namely, Twin Peaks and Stranger Things. I admit that neo-noir mystery and '80s sci-fi vibes don't instantly spring to mind the first time I enter Castor Woods, the remote national park where hero Kyle Crane has ended up (joined by hundreds of undead happy campers) after years of human experimentation. Think Atomfall, minus the robots.

But when I emerge from a hard-won safehouse at sunset and let the rain wash over me, my body, bullets, and bandage stockpiles exhausted, a crackling voice keeps me company. I listen to an audio collectible, an episode of Pepper Sparks' Hidden Truths podcast, as it recounts legends of a local cryptid. Flickering UV lights standing in for a campfire to warm the chill going down my spine; the shadows around Castor Woods are suddenly teeming with more than just leaves and zombies, though those are two great places to start.

All grown up

Dying Light hasn't felt this mysterious, sophisticated, or all-out bloody since 2015, and it all starts with the little things. Not only is the above podcast collectible a personal favorite of Tymon Smektała's – "it's my baby," the franchise director tells me, thrilled that I discovered it – but it shows how much Techland has narrowed its focus for The Beast.

After four hours spent exploring Castor Woods and exposing a mere handful of its secrets, The Beast already feels like a very different game to Dying Light 2. Gone is the urban density of Harran and Viledor, replaced here by overgrown forests and bodies of black water lapping at the shores of what I'm sure were once perfectly placid mountainside towns.

As a tighter, more focused narrative experience, doing away with player choice elements and slimming down the scope to emphasize gameplay, exploration, story, and immersion, The Beast instantly feels sharper for the fat trimming.

Castor Woods is a cinematic playground I want to mess around in for hours, even taking the first main missions at a brisk pace. Dynamic weather patterns and audio-visual effects make every moment feel unique, complementing day and night cycles to add an extra dose of realism. To that end, The Beast feels like the most Dying Light game in the whole Dying Light series yet.

Rather than a bunch of NPC fetch quests to help get acquainted with Castor Woods, I'm thrown headfirst into the story immediately. Kyle has been irrevocably changed since we last saw him in the Dying Light, thanks to the human experimentation he's suffered through at the hands of The Baron, and the man is desperate for vengeance. To face the tyrant head-on, he'll have to battle terrifying turbo-charged zombies called Chimeras, extract DNA samples from each, and use them to harness his latent superhuman abilities.

That leaves very little time to waste on fluff, but it does make for intentional storytelling and faster introduction of new gameplay mechanics. Remember what I said about the Twin Peaks and Stranger Things influences? Investigation plays a large role in Dying Light: The Beast, with Kyle using his Hunter's Sense to track down Chimeras similar to how Geralt tracks monsters in The Witcher 3.

Side quests do exist, though I only happen upon a couple – safe house clearing and dark zones, mostly. Smektała suggests "20 to 30 hours" of side content on top of the game's 20-hour story, though, so I'm sure these will open up along with the frankly massive world map.

That said, aside from all those lore-building collectibles I found littered across Castor Woods (like the podcast episode mentioned earlier) Dying Light: The Beast's early hours seem to be all about our main man.

Darkness falls across the land

Kyle is unapologetically positioned as a definitive action hero, with The Beast being the first game in Dying Light to feature third-person cutscenes as well as first-person ones to highlight the importance of his comeback and give it a cinematic edge. To that end, The Beast feels like a character study and playable vengeance movie combined with a generous dose of chills and thrills to challenge even the biggest survival horror fan.

If you agree with Techland and lament how Dying Light 2 "lost its horror", you're in luck with The Beast. The atmosphere of night-time gameplay has certainly had a facelift following Aiden's adventure, bringing back the tension and jumpscares many of us reveled in while playing the first game while flexing some serious cinematic chops to boot.

Each time a Volatile – a turbo-charged zombie only active by night – looks in my direction, a Psycho-like musical sting jolts me into action as I stealthily rush for cover. Body horror-wise, The Beast doubles down on gnarly biological realism as skulls are popped, glistening brains are exposed, and limbs come flying off with each merry hack and slash of my blunt machete.

That said, The Beast's early-game horrors do feel pared back to push the story forward at pace. We're closely centered on a traumatized, enraged Kyle as he grapples with the suffering he endured while held prisoner – so much so that while The Beast is considered a standalone Dying Light game, I'd wager the gravitas of Kyle's return might be lost on a total newbie. Though I suppose even if you had no experience with the previous games, who wouldn't want to play a rugged hunk battering Chimeras to death with his bare hands or mowing them down in a pickup truck?

Changing the game

Yep, you heard me. While Dying Light: The Beast largely runs on the ethos of "less is more," that's true of all elements but two: combat and traversal.

The most notable new combat elements in The Beast are the fittingly-named Beast Mode and the re-introduction of firearms following their huge popularity in 2016's Dying Light: The Following DLC. Guns and ammo are sparing in The Beast – I only found one gun and about 18 pistol bullets in four hours, oops – but the one thing you can rely on? Kyle can and will hulk out eventually and enter Beast Mode. Every time Kyle deals or takes damage, he charges up a rage bar just below your health indicator. Fill it completely, and he goes into full-blown frenzy during which he's invulnerable and able to commit feats of brutality for a handful of precious, overpowered seconds.

You have full control over Kyle as he rages out. Punching zombies, tearing their heads off, slamming his fists on the floor to send stunning shockwaves into crowds… Kyle is half man, half monster. You can also take a more strategic approach with Beast Mode. I frequently seek out hordes to brawl with and up some rage before facing tougher battles, most notably against Chimeras.

It's worth noting that each time you defeat a Chimera in Dying Light: The Beast, Kyle uses a device to extract some of its DNA and – you guessed it – injects that good stuff right into himself.

Each dose of Chimera juice enhances Kyle's nascent Beast abilities by awarding you a skill point per new Chimera type slain. His Beast skills have their own branch on his four-pronged skill tree, his other branches being survival, power, and agility. I'm told it's possible to fully upgrade all your skill trees, meaning while I find Kyle's Beast damage output a little low in these early hours, there's clearly a high ceiling for growth here.

Rather than Chimeras being an excuse for Kyle's superpowers, they actually feel like a great bit of balancing alongside the presence of Volatiles. Mechanically, the two are very different. Volatiles are a stealth challenge, where Chimeras are an all-out strength challenge even when confronted by day.

We all know Volatiles are hulking, split-jawed problems incarnate, but you never know what a Chimera's special ability might be, and that makes them infinitely more challenging. The Mist Chimera is spindly and spry, for example, spawning regular zombies to attack you while she spews bile and launches herself in your direction after leaping off their shoulders. Meanwhile the first Chimera, Reaper, is pure might and muscle.

The threat posed by Chimeras effectively pushes back against one of my biggest initial concerns going into the game: that Beast Mode would render the new Dying Light game too easy. But if anything, The Beast feels much harder than the last two games despite the guns and superpowers at your fingertips thanks to Techland's broader gameplay reworks, and that is a feat in itself.

Beast on wheels

As for vehicles in Dying Light: The Beast, I only come across one pickup truck on my travels, helpfully highlighted by the compass along the top of my screen. Vehicles are mainly discovered while out exploring Castor Woods, giving them a similar mobility function to the role of parkour in more built-up regions of the map. Without pickup trucks, Castor Woods is one hell of a trek.

I love every moment behind the wheel, despite how first-person driving perspectives have never been my favorite. I always swap to third person while driving in Cyberpunk 2077, for example, but there's no NCPD in Castor Woods to chase me down for slamming zombies into trees.

The best thing is that they don't just ricochet off the bonnet and ragdoll about. Some zombies end up latching onto my windshield, shrieking at me through the glass before being unceremoniously splattered against a nearby wall or tree or massive boulder. Cars are a temporary bit of power and protection, though. I learned this the hard way when my vehicle started sputtering smoke, forcing me to leap out the door action hero-style and book it for the hills. I think I heard an explosion, but I didn't turn back to see it. Action heroes don't turn to see the explosions, remember?

Dying Light: The Beast is exactly what I hoped it would be: a thrilling return for Kyle Crane, a nailbiting survival-action-horror adventure with just the right amount of novelty, and Techland at its technical finest as it drives the series toward an impressive, bloodsoaked future.

Each Dying Light game has offered something new yet familiar, and The Beast pulls that off twofold by choosing linear narrative over player choice. There's an unmistakable poetry in how the hostile wilderness of Castor Woods mirrors the changes Kyle has gone through in himself. He's a wild animal unleashed, a ticking timebomb of rage set to tear these rolling hills (and The Baron) a new one. Roll on August 22 – I'll see you in the woods.

Horror Special | Our deep dive into Dying Light: The Beast continues...