And most skills are distinct and useful enough to change the way I approach both fights and parkour. Each time I had a point to spend, I really had to consider what would have helped the most while I was getting my ass kicked for the past few hours. It makes progress feel earned, something I really have to struggle to accomplish, and it makes deliberating over which skill to pick feel important. Whereas a game like Far Cry 6 would have thrown loads of exciting weapons and skills at me immediately, in my first 10 hours of Dying Light 2 I'd only added a couple of extra moves to my arsenal. Progression is slow: every enemy I kill and wall I climb sends a trickle of combat and parkour XP into my bank, and only once I've leveled up those talents am I given a single point to unlock a new move from the two skill trees. The first few hours of Dying Light 2's feel shaky, slow, and clumsy-I miss my jumps frequently, hesitate at the ledge of every building before leaping, frequently run out of stamina while climbing, and hammer away at zombies with ineffectual weapons like table legs and baseball bats. I'm a complete klutz, a disgrace to the art of climbing walls and running on rooftops.

I'm not yet a dynamo of flying kicks and fluid parkour when I arrive in Villedor.

Dying light 2 gameplay