11 Dying Light The Beast tips to help you smack zombies with a shovel

These Dying Light The Beast tips are the best pointers I can come up with after hours playing the game. 11 tips to guide you through some of the trickier, or less clear parts of the game, that will hopefully save you some time working things out for yourself. From combat to crafting, there's lots of little things the game never outright explains, and you could easily kick yourself when you realise something you've been missing for ages. So avoid that, read this, and let my Dying Light The Beast tips get you up to speed sooner rather than later.

Dying Light The Beast quick tips

1. Use survivor sense to avoid missing resources
2. Be careful groups of weak zombies don't overwhelm you
3. Take care not to use up all your stamina spamming attacks and dodge
4. Always get somewhere safe to heal
5. Always make room to get in a power swing
6. Sweep the legs to knock zombies to the floor
7. Don't repair weapons until they break to get max use
8. Always grab safe spots you pass to get more respawn or escape options
9. Take advantage of double XP gains at night if it's safe
10. You'll often visit Dark Zones for side quests so they can wait
11. Use weaker zombies to charge Beast Mode when you need it

1. Ping your survivor sense loads to make sure you don't miss anything

Dying Light The Beast is all about the crafting, and your pockets will be jangling with rags, wires, electrical parts and God knows what else to make bandages, bombs upgrades and more. However, the game doesn't do much to make these resources stand out - there's no glowing outlines or bright colors to draw your eye, making it easy to miss things. So ping your survivor sense all the time. You'll be amazed how often it will light up a wealth of riches around that you completely missed. Almost everything you do that isn't hitting zombies with shovels involves crafting, so make sure you grab everything.

2. Don't underestimate groups of weak zombies or you'll be overwhelmed

In classic zombie movie style, a single zombie is easy to deal with. It only takes one or two more to make things tricky though - they can lunge and close the distance quickly, and if you're in a restricted space things can get messy quickly. Keep your distance where possible and pay attention to what you're dealing with. A crowd on its own can quickly get dangerous but when special zombie types get mixed in - adding things like ranged attack, charges or leaps - it's easy to get quickly overwhelmed. Just remember to make space, stay observant and don't panic.

3. Watch your stamina or you'll be defenceless

Until you've levelled up a few times your stamina is good for a few weapon swings or a couple of dodges at best. Combat needs to be extremely economical early on as a result, to avoid you running out of energy when you need it most. Every time you level up you'll get a boost to your stamina and health, which helps over time but avoid wild swinging and dodging to make the best of the energy you have. Anything that uses up stamina needs to be used strategically rather than spammed.

4. Always get clear to heal or you'll end up taking more damage

Healing takes a little time in Dying Light The Beast, as you wrap bandages or eat a snack bar. Never try to heal in the middle of combat as you'll just take damage, blocking the heal and ending up more hurt. The second you need some health, disengage and get clear of what you're doing. Jump on a car, run around a corner, or just run away, period - do what you can to buy the time needed to use a consumable. You can level up bandages to make them better and, more importantly, quicker to use, which is worth doing. It's also worth saving bandages for combat and using the variety of snacks you can collect to top yourself up when you're not fighting. They only give you 10% health, so are not much use when you're surrounded by an army of biters but perfect to chew through when there's no pressure.

5. Make space for power swings to get extra damage

The undead can be spongy in so many ways and power swings are a great way of landing more damage on them. However, they take some time to charge, making them hard to bust out in the thick of things. If you want to try for a heftier swing, back off and buy some time and space to do it. If you let the zombies gather while you move away you can also hit multiple enemies at once.

6. Sweep the legs to knock zombies to the floor rather than head or body shots

While it's instinct (and a lot of fun) to go for the head when you're spanging zombies with a spade, it's actually better to go for the legs. More often than not you'll knock them to the floor or take a leg off completely. In a game where combat relies heavily on threat management in an overcrowded space, crippling and flooring opponents is more valuable than outright killing them. Hack the legs to keep them off you and pound them on the floor once they're down.

7. Don't repair weapons until they break. You can only do it so many times

You can repair weapons when they break, but it's only a certain number of times before they're gone forever (RIP comedy clonk shovel, you were a real one). While it's tempting to fix them the second you get a warning of impending breakage, wait until they are completely gone and then nip into you inventory to fix them. It'll pause the game while you do and means you get the maximum number of whacks from them. Some weapons can carry on going for quite a while flashing red, and there's also a skill you can eventually unlock that will improve durability.

8. Always set up a safe house if you pass one to have better respawn and escape options

When you die, you'll respawn at the nearest safe house. At the same time if you're caught out at night, you'll have to run to the closest safe house to avoid a volatile. For those reasons always try and grab a safe spot if you pass one. You'll often see them pop up while you're travelling between missions and it's best to clear out the enemies and get the power back on while you're nearby - the more you have, the more options you'll get for respawn locations and have more places to run to if you're out after dark.

9. Take advantage of double XP gains at night

Being out at night is suicidal generally, leading to chases to the nearest safe zone. However, you get double XP for the risk. So if you're not being chased, or in any immediate danger, then it's worth getting a little extra XP from killing zombies. doing other bit and pieces, and even entire missions. You'll have to give up and run to a safe house the second a volatile spots you but you can farm a few points if you're careful.

10. Don't worry about clearing dark zones you find as you'll often end up visiting them for side quests

Dark Zones are great for getting some higher level gear initially but don't worry too much about clearing them all out methodically, as you'll often end up visiting them for side missions. It's definitely worth checking the map to see what the rewards are and if it's something useful to you right now. But don't worry about religiously working through them, as you'll just end up doing some of them twice.

11. Be tactical with Beast Mode

Hulking out in Beast Mode is great fun as you smooch puny zombies heads with your bare hands. You can't initially control it all that well, and the ability to trigger it at will is something you eventually unlock, but you can at least try and influence when it activates to get the best of it. In any tough situation, like a boss fight or battle with high level monsters, focus on the weaker zombies to charge up your Beast mode as fast as possible, using it when it triggers to deal with the bigger threats.

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