It’s been a week since Techland finally gave us Dying Light: The Beast, and after a full decade, Kyle Crane was back. Sure, we had a mainline sequel in 2022, but the devs clearly tried way too many different things, a lot of which didn’t resonate with the fanbase. So, turning Dying Light 2’s major expansion into a full-fledged game (while still keeping it free for DL2 Deluxe Edition buyers) was the right call, because we got Kyle Crane back, and what a return to form it has been.
Dying Light: The Beast has been effectively ‘more Dying Light’, and I absolutely adored every minute of it with my review copy. Still, there are always a few ways that the community comes together to tweak new games, and within a week, Dying Light: The Beast has over 150 mods on NexusMods. Now, I’m not a fan of exploitative mods, get-rich-quick, or god-mode mods, but there are a few that are simply QoL mods that have made the overall game experience remarkably better without changing anything about the core experience, and that’s the kind of mods that really hit the sweet spot.
4 A fast launch mod stacks up significantly over time
Being in Castor Woods just fifteen seconds after booting the game is always rewarding
This one is rather self-explanatory. The Skip Intro Videos mod by ‘sekurovich’ on NexusMods simply eliminates all the initial title cards and videos when you initialize the game. Effectively, this saves you about 10–15 seconds of time on every single boot of the game, which clearly stacks up over the days.
More importantly, however, the feeling of being inside the game just 10 or 15 seconds (depending on your hardware) after you launch the title is definitely rewarding. Now, the first game, now a decade old, is still one where I could never skip the intro videos, especially the game’s introduction where the stakes are set. I’ve played the damned game seven times over and then some, and yet, the lady going “the eyes of the world have been glued to the city of Harran” are still some of the greatest opening words of any game ever, right next to “Good morning Night City!”
3 The Beast gets gore right, but this mod makes it bloodier
It’s a Dying Light game. Who would say no to more blood?
One of the biggest problems with Dying Light 2 at launch was how the gore system and blood effects seemed to have taken a step back from the original game. After all, I distinctly remember having made my mom almost puke when I sliced zombies left and right, splitting them apart in one slash while playing the first game on my PlayStation 4.
Dying Light: The Beast has made sure that the gore is absolutely on point this time around. The game features a remarkable amount of bloody animations and ways to tear up Infected with all sorts of weapons, but since it’s a Dying Light game, why would anyone say no to more blood?
User VAXIStaa on NexusMods has created the Gore Mod for Dying Light: The Beast, which increases the decal sizes for blood spatter on your screen, the time it takes for bloodied, dismembered limbs and zombie corpses to disappear from the ground, and the LOD. In fact, you even get to pick how much blood spatter you want on your own screen when you slice zombies up close, as well as how bloody you want this mod to make your game. It doesn’t change a single thing about the game’s mechanics, but it still makes things bloodier, which only helps to improve immersion in this zombie-infested world. This one is definitely a must-have, in my opinion.
2 The ‘Don’t Grab Me’ mod fixes a huge problem with the game
The community at large has complained about zombies being too handsy
Now, Dying Light is all about taking to the rooftops and parkouring in first-person to avoid hordes of zombies on street-level, but if you’ve played the game for anything more than an hour, you’ll know that there are always a handful of zombies on rooftops as well, just waiting for you to dropkick them, ’09 Randy Orton style.
Even on the streets, it’s a ton of fun to vault over the shambling Infected, weaving and dodging your way through hordes if you sometimes have no option but to stay on the ground. However, there’s a bit of a problem with that aspect in The Beast — the game has made zombies way too handsy. Sure, some zombies grabbing you if you get too close makes sense (this is a zombie game, after all), but for every single walking Infected to be able to magnetically attach to you the moment you get in their vicinity? That gets a little much, especially since you have no choice but to lose a significant chunk of your health to each grapple.
The ‘Don’t Grab Me’ mod from VAXIStaa, the same user who made the enhanced Gore Mod, fixes that problem. It even allows you to pick whether you want to be nearly un-grabbable, as if you were coated in butter while playing the game, or if you’re okay with a middle ground where some zombies succeed in getting their hands on you.
1 The flashlight is the only tool you trust once night falls
Dying Light: The Beast nails nighttime, but a stronger flashlight certainly helps
It’s called Dying Light because once the sun sets, there aren’t a lot of things saving you from certain demise. The zombies get stronger, you can’t see anything, and the parkour gets tougher because of it. The only thing you can trust? Your flashlight which shines and shows you the way forward. In The Beast, the nights make the game a genuine horror show, and you can’t see anything except maybe three feet ahead of you through your flashlight.
Since it’s so deathly pitch-black, there’s no doubt that the flashlight should have been stronger. Sure, that might be fixed as soon as Techland drops the ray-tracing update that fixes the torch, but in the meantime, the ‘DLTB Brighter Flashlight’ mod really makes things easier for those of us who are terrified of the night, and yet can’t resist going out once the sun sets.
With more throw and area of effect, the improved flashlight mod does make the light from your torch stronger, but at the same time, more noticeable to Volatiles and other zombies hunting you, making the risk-reward system the same, even after the mod.
The plethora of mods is a great sign of community engagement
Dying Light: The Beast is a game built to last.
The best thing about Dying Light: The Beast is how we know with certainty that it’s a game built to last. Since it moved from DLC status to a standalone title, it only means that when Techland will support it for years to come, we’ll only get more new mechanics and, of course, more Crane.
In the meantime, the community’s rapid response with so many mods shows how much players are still invested in Techland’s world, and when things go from just being developer-driven to also including what players add on top of it through their own experience, the feeling of shared community is unparalleled.