Dying Light 2: Stay Human New Skills Will Keep Players Above The Fray

Dying Light 2: Stay Human will finally parkour onto PC and consoles next month. As the release approaches, developer/publisher Techland has been keeping an open line of communication with fans. The open-world zombie sequel has a pretty active presence on YouTube, and today Techland revealed six skills that players will be able to unlock when the game launches on February 4.

Three of those skills are from the Combat skill tree, and the other three come from the Parkour tree. On the combat side, the video shows off Block Charge, Perfect Parry, and Ground Pound. Those skills basically do what they say on the tin. The Block Charge description reads: “When blocking, charge at an enemy in front of you and knock them to the ground.” The accompanying clip shows a player knocking an opponent down from off a ledge and landing on the ground with a thud and splatter of blood. Perfect Parry is similarly straightforward, with the text reading, “Parry at the last moment to stagger enemy.” Ground Pound seems most fun of the three, with a clip of a player hurtling down with their machete, and knocking a pair of enemies back, staggered. The description reads, “Perform a powerful attack while in mid-air.”

But, returning players may be more interested to see the abilities they’ll be able to unlock to make traversal more exciting and dynamic. On the Parkour side, Far Jump is a stand out. The description reads, “Use any obstacle to spring from it and jump further.” And that’s just what the clip shows, with a player hurling themselves from one rooftop to another. Bash is another skill designed to keep players moving with uninterrupted speed as they “bash through obstacles and enemies without stopping.” Tic Tac, meanwhile, will allow players to wall-run.

Each of the trees offers many more skills to unlock, for a total of 24 in each. Unlike the original game, which offered five kinds of skills, Dying Light 2 has simplified down to these two.

“While performing specific in-game actions, players will earn experience points in one of two areas—parkour and combat. Traversal actions like climbing, jumping, or vaulting will be rewarded by progressing a parkour-centric experience bar,” Techland said in a press release. “The more complex and skillful movements players perform, the more experience will be gained. Likewise, to earn combat-centric experience points, players should take the fight straight to enemies and perform combination attacks to net even more experience points.”

The first game gained a legion of fans thanks, in large part, to its approach to fast, fluid movement in an open and zombie-infested world. Dying Light 2: Stay Human looks like it's building on that foundation. We’ll find out for sure next month.