In our guide, we provide you with nine useful tips to help you get started in Dying Light 2: What you should know about quests, combat and the game world.
Life in the zombie apocalypse is no walk in the park. This is also the case in Dying Light 2, where there are almost no firearms and you have to rely mainly on your physical condition. That’s why we’re providing you with useful tips in our beginner’s guide to make it easier for you to start playing Dying Light 2.
9 helpful tips to help you start the game
Focus on quests, explore later
The open world of Dying Light 2 seems tempting at first glance, of course, but you’ll have plenty of time for that later! Especially the nights or simply the more difficult climbing passages can make you lose your teeth in the beginning. In order to progress quickly and become fit for harder tasks, you should first concentrate on the main missions of the first act and, if you wish, also the side quests.
This is the quickest way to collect the important experience points and inhibitors. With the parkour and combat skills you have thus unlocked, life in Villedor is not only easier, it is also twice as much fun not to fail at the first hurdles! And along the way you will get to know many important characters and their motivations – while details about the game world and its mechanics are explained to you.
Don’t be afraid to die
In video games, no one usually likes to die. Even if there are no serious in-game penalties for it, the humiliation sometimes hurts even more. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t worry about dying in Dying Light 2, especially at the beginning.
Because in order to get to know the mechanics and the game world of Dying Light, it is worth taking a risk. Be it through a (too) daring jump or by getting too close to an exotic-looking undead. If you die at night, you only lose your bonuses on the experience points. During the day, dying on screen has almost no disadvantages.
During missions, your progress remains intact, and the respawn point is rarely far away from your destination. So in Dying Light 2 you can test your limits with a clear conscience until you know the game world and have mastered the gameplay.
Shun nights until you are strong enough to do so
Don’t feel bad if you prefer to spend the dangerous nights in Dying Light 2 in your safe bunk for the time being. Especially in the first hours of the game, it is risky to be out and about in Villedor at night. Zombie howlers alert the dangerous infected, who will quickly finish you off. If you haven’t yet unlocked enough stamina or parkour skills for Aiden, you’ll quickly end up as zombie fodder.
In addition, you don’t have much immunity to the darkness at the beginning. This means that, with all the stress, you are also under time pressure before you turn into a zombie yourself due to a lack of UV light.
So go to sleep when night falls again in Dying Light 2. A nice side effect: In the story missions, you are introduced more gently to the many game mechanics of the nocturnal forays. So you’ll learn soon enough how best to survive in the dark.
Climb and fight as much as you can
In Dying Light 2, you earn experience points not only by completing quests, but even easier by playing as much as possible. The more you climb or fight, the more progress you collect for the two skill trees. And the more difficult an enemy is to defeat, the more points will be added to your account. The same applies to your parkour experience points. Here you will be rewarded for insane stunts and moves strung together.
Accordingly, we recommend that you simply complete all the routes in a particularly stylish manner and also take part in one or two fights. This will ensure that you earn a lot of experience points in the first few hours of the game and make Aiden faster and stronger.
During the dangerous nights, there are of course bonuses on all your actions – but don’t overdo it. Without inhibitors, you have just five minutes to survive in the dark without UV radiation. There’s no shame in trying it later before you risk your hard-earned night bonuses.
The first real decision comes late
Survivor or Peacekeeper? Dying Light 2 will confront you with this decision, among many others, sooner or later. Actually, later, because the story gives you enough time before you actually have to take sides. And you should definitely take that time, because as already mentioned in our test, there is no classic good versus evil in the city of Villedore, but instead a lot of moral grey.
So first get to know the peacekeepers and survivors and decide who you want to support in the further course of the game based on your personal preferences. Your choice should be well-considered, because once assigned faction buildings cannot be reassigned to the competing party. If you want to get all the advantages from one faction, you shouldn’t go in two directions.
Learn to pick locks, you’ll need it later
There’s only one mini-game in Dying Light, but it should sound familiar if you’ve ever played a Bethesda RPG before: lock picking. Specifically, this means that you fumble around with a lockpick in order to open doors or crates. There is usually valuable loot waiting for you behind them.
In the course of the action, however, locked doors or crates do not become fewer – quite the opposite. The most valuable weapons, clothing and resources are hidden behind them, which is why you should definitely learn the thieving craft early on. We also recommend that you upgrade the crafting blueprints for lock picks. This will not only make your tools more durable, but you will also be able to craft more of them or use fewer resources in the process. An investment that pays off in the long run.
Don’t buy weapons, buy components
Even if the high-quality but equally expensive weapons of a dealer seem tempting, you can safely ignore them. Rather save your money, because you will get enough weapons for free for completed quests or while exploring the game world. Moreover, weapons quickly lose their appeal as soon as you level up and can thus find more powerful variants of them.
It is therefore better to invest your gold in rare components such as weights, blades or feathers in order to improve found weapons with mods. In the later course of the game, high-quality modifications will consume huge amounts of gold. But if you have already taken care of components in advance, you can save yourself the trouble of looting.
Sell excess loot, you don’t need it
Your inventory will quickly fill up as you explore the city of Villedore: Weapons, clothing, crafting components and valuables are waiting for you to collect just about everywhere. To ensure that your inventory doesn’t get too full, you should pay regular visits to traders. You can find them in the peacekeepers’ and survivors’ bases, of course, and also at unlocked windmills.
Sell all your valuables there regularly, conveniently at the touch of a button. Don’t worry, crafting resources are not sold. You can also safely say goodbye to weapons with too low a level or unused items of clothing. They have no further use and only clog up your inventory. So turn your rubbish into cash to quickly make room for new things.
Loots (almost) everything you come across
No matter what you want to craft: You need components for almost everything. That’s why you should always keep your eyes open and turn over every stone, especially in the first hours of the game. To do this, use your survival instinct, which you activate with the Q key. It causes a short ping, which highlights every interesting object in your vicinity for a short time. And while you really don’t need to loot standard zombies, you should definitely empty the pockets of any special variety.
No matter what colour it lights up in, you should definitely pocket the item. If in doubt, you can use it for crafting or at least turn it into money. To collect resources or items, you should also use your map: Once you have uncovered a few locations, open your map and look out for blue and orange crate symbols. You should only pay attention to the blue icons at night, during the day there are too many and too dangerous enemies hanging around.
Orange icons, on the other hand, contain high-value items that are also readily guarded by monstrous zombie types. In GRE labs you will find valuable loot boxes that are worth looting, in addition to the inhibitors.
If you rattle off these three activities from time to time, you should always be able to call a well-filled inventory your own. Also, don’t be afraid to visit the same shops, labs and convoys again, as the items will respawn after a while.
Dying Light 2 will be released on 4 February 2022 for PC, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X. All info about the preload, the system requirements, gameplay and more we have summarised for you in our big overview.
Dying Light 2 in review: We came for the open world and stayed for the story
What else would you like to know about the launch of Dying Light 2? Write it down in the comments, maybe we can help you right away.
