Review by Gianluca “DottorKillex” Arena
Dying Light was one of the happiest surprises of 2015: the son of the evolution of a development team that has always been dedicated to zombie games, it turned out to be a solid, long-lived and very fun product, which skilfully mixed elements of survival, parkour. , first person shooter and role playing game.
Today, exactly one year after its publication, here comes The Following, a large expansion available both alone, for all owners of the base game (at a price of just under twenty euros), and bundled with the latter, in a renamed Enhanced Edition: in whatever form you decide to buy it, however, this additional content deserves to be played, especially if you loved the atmosphere and game rhythms of last year's title.
The cult
In the excellent ensemble of the original title, the main narrative line was perhaps the least successful thing, so much so that, often, many of the sidequest proposals overshadowed its progress: The Following improves this aspect, because, after a few hours of trivial quests , designed to win the trust of a new group of survivors, the story will take off, fitting perfectly into the universe created by Techland.
It all begins when a mysterious stranger with an eye patch arrives in Harran, dying, raving about how, thanks to his Mother, there is a group of people immune to the virus, just outside the city.
The injuries sustained do not allow the mysterious individual to survive, but our Kyle, of whom we will take on the clothes again, after studying the map found on the stranger, decides to leave no stone unturned, and heads to the rural area of the Turkish town , looking for answers.
Between mysterious cults, plots and dozens of zombies, the plot unfolds in an organic and credible way along the main missions, while offering a large number of side quests, some of which offer a truly remarkable level of challenge, thought, probably , for players who had grown a character out of all proportion during the previous adventure.
The character impersonated during Dying Light can be imported without limitations into The Following, and with it all the accumulated arsenal: the programmers advise not to face the downloadable content with a character below level 18, and, in fact, some secondary missions they put a strain on my character, level 20 and armed to the teeth.
The level of acting, with faces at times a little inexpressive, is at the same level as that seen last year, but if you were just looking for an excuse to return to the rotten and desolate world created by the Polish team, in short, The Following will be able to offer you. a more than valid narrative context to justify hours and hours of looting and zombie killing.
As before, much more than before
The strength of The Following lies in having preserved all the merits of the basic chapter, enriching the gaming experience in many small compartments: from the dune buggy, which certainly represents the most consistent novelty, to the arc, passing through the new level of difficulty and a much larger map (albeit much less dense) than that of the original title.
Starting from what comes back from the recent past, the combat system has remained unchanged, with its load of physicality and blood, with that satisfying violence and the selective dismemberment of the putrid bodies of the undead: although firearms are not lacking, and indeed in the countryside they seem more common than in the city, the satisfaction of tearing apart a huge tank with our saber modified to inflict electrical damage is still priceless.
The new play area, set in the countryside outside the city, goes well with the introduction of the dune buggy, a vehicle that can be found starting from the first mission and completely customizable, both in the mechanical and in the aesthetic parts.
If, at first, I preferred to play The Following as I had done with Dying Light, preferring to move on foot so as not to deprive myself of some skirmish with the groups of zombies on the way, from mission to mission I have increasingly appreciated the speed of movement guaranteed by the half, and the pleasure reached unspeakable levels when I recovered the necessary to assemble the flamethrower and the blades, so as to transform a simple means of locomotion into a walking weapon.
Of course, the driving model is questionable, with a marked arcade imprint and excessive nervousness in the controls, but, considering that the car will be more useful for engaging in group massacres than for winning races (also present), this does not affect in any way the gaming experience.
The vast rural areas that form the backdrop to the adventure overshadow the parkour element, and turn out to be much less dense than the city ones, but nevertheless hide small farms to be plundered, hostile groups to pacify and nests of very nocturnals. disreputable.
The missions connected to them proved to be among the most difficult in the game, including the basic adventure: facing them during the day, when the nests are full of monsters, proves to be an almost impossible undertaking for solitary players, and at night, when the nests they are empty, you have to move with great caution so as not to attract hordes of hungry zombies.
A further variant is represented by the arc, which allows a new stealth approach, which acts as a counterbalance to the usual indiscriminate massacre: considering that the character can be rebounded between the original adventure and this expansion, this addition offers a completely interpretative key. new also to replay the already long-lived title of last year.
No changes
Apart from a better general cleaning, with fewer glitches and some textures in better shape, the visual sector does not betray any changes whatsoever compared to last year, and on the other hand the title, also much less beautiful to see on PS4 than while it wasn't on a high-end PC, it retains its undeniable charm, with believable zombies in both animations and looks, a solid framerate, and very well-acted español dub.
If the initial cost of almost twenty euros could make some noses turn up, the scarce twenty hours I spent with the title, reaching the end of the main storyline but leaving out several secondary missions that I plan to complete as soon as possible, says a lot. on the playful offer of the Techland product, furthermore extended by the Legend levels and by the possibility of replaying everything at an absurd difficulty.
Final comment
Poland confirms itself as a hotbed of great talents: after Cd Projekt, Techland also offers a high-quality expansion for its Dying Light, giving numerous hours of additional fun to fans of the first hour and a complete edition not to be missed for all those. that they missed the base game, which came out last year.
The Following is the manifesto of how to propose a DLC without annoying the community of players, and indeed offering them improvements, updates and unreleased content at a reasonable price.
