Before I start, I would like to say that this story takes place after the events of Dying Light and Dying Light 2. If you haven't played or watched either of these two games, I recommend that you read this brief summary first so that you can be familiar with what happens in the stories and what the universe of this franchise is like. Making that clear, I hope you understand and enjoy.
Dying Light is a first person open world survival horror game with creative combat and an impressive parkour system. With many skills available, you can explore the huge open world and face a variety of unknown infected creatures. During the day, zombies are weak and fragile, but at night they become extremely dangerous. Among the various types of zombies that have mutated and evolved, the most dangerous are those known as volatiles. They appear only at night and will chase the first victim they find, but they're sensitive to ultraviolet light.
The first game was released in 2015 for PS4, Xbox One and PC and the second game was released in 2022 for these same platforms, but also for PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Dying Light (2015) summary
The game is set in the city of Harran, where a mysterious viral outbreak has turned most of the population into hyper-aggressive zombies, forcing the Harran Ministry of Defense to quarantine parts of the city. The Global Relief Effort (GRE) helps survivors who are still trapped in the city by regularly providing supplies. Some time later, the GRE has hired Kyle Crane (the main character) to infiltrate Harran in order to recover a confidential file stolen by Kadir Suleiman (also known as Rais), who is using it as leverage to blackmail them, with the threat of disclosing it if anything happens to him.
Crane infiltrates Harran by parachute and is ambushed by a gang of hostile bandits. Crane is wounded, but shoots and kills one of them with a gun shortly thereafter. With the noise of the shots, the screams of creatures echo through the city and the bandits get scared and decide to run away. As soon as a viral (zombie that can run) appears, Crane is bitten and infected, but saved by a woman named Jade Aldemir and a man named Amir Ghoreyshi. Then they try to escape, but Amir ends up sacrificing himself to save Jade and Crane. Afterwards, Jade takes Crane to a sanctuary of survivors they call Tower (a huge building).
Crane wakes up in the Tower and is introduced to Rahim Aldemir, Jade's younger brother. Rahim teaches Crane some parkour basics and sends him outside to Spike, who gives him his first mission as a Tower Runner (people who complete missions and explore the city for supplies). Crane finds out that the Tower, which seeks to help other survivors, is being disrespected by that same bandit gang that ambushed him earlier led by a ruthless warlord named Rais (the antagonist), who steals and hoards supplies from GRE air drops, including the famous Antizin (a drug that suppresses the symptoms of infection and slows down the process of turning into a zombie). After Brecken, the leader of the Tower, was nearly killed by a rival Runner on a mission to collect an airdrop of Antizin, the Tower's need for the drug became huge.
On one of his missions, Crane manages to reach an air drop of Antizin, but despite the survivors' dire need for the drug, he is instructed by the GRE to destroy it. Afterwards, he is instructed to go to Rais, buy the drug and possibly confirm his identity. Reluctantly, Crane obeys and lies to the Tower that the supplies have been looted.
Upset, Crane decides to go to a meeting that Brecken has called for all Runners. At the meeting, Brecken suggests making a deal with Rais in exchange for Antizin. Many disagree and Jade even offers to go saying that she's not afraid of him, but Crane cuts her off and volunteers afterwards. Everyone can't believe it, but Brecken approves of the idea when Crane says Rais doesn't know him and that would make things easier.
Upon meeting Rais in his territory, Crane confirms that he is indeed Kadir Suleiman, the man who stole the confidential GRE file he is looking for. He accomplishes a series of unethical missions for Rais, under the assumption that he will be rewarded with two boxes of Antizin. Crane is unable to locate the file, and is later tricked by Rais into only giving him five vials of Antizin instead of the two boxes he promised. Later, the GRE contacts Crane and says that they will no longer provide air drops and that they won't help the Tower, which infuriates him and causes him to abandon GRE.
The situation in the Tower takes a turn for the worse, and an entire floor is shut down when an outbreak occurs that leads to many deaths, including many children.
In desperate hopes of finding Antizin, Crane and Jade attack a supply storage facility run by Rais, which was formerly a school. Surprisingly, they don't find Antizin, but plastic explosives, which they decide to steal to prevent Rais from using them in the future. As soon as they both return to Tower, Rahim tells Crane that he and a survivor named Omar are planning to bomb a nest of volatiles (extremely aggressive and dangerous creatures that only appear at night) in an abandoned building with the explosives that Jade and Crane found at school. Crane objects to this plan and forbids Rahim from carrying it out, but after finding out that Rahim ignored him and did it anyway, Crane tries to bail him out. Upon reaching him, he finds out that Omar is dead and that Rahim has a leg wound. Rahim tells Crane that he just cut himself and not to worry about him.
Thinking that Crane would not arrive in time, Rahim armed the explosives and waited for death. But when Crane arrived, Rahim handed him the explosives and told him to hurry up. Crane then carries out Rahim's plans, managing to infiltrate the building and successfully destroy the nest of volatiles. When he goes back to Rahim, he finds out that that leg wound was actually a bite and Rahim had turned while Crane was away. Rahim attacks Crane and tries to kill him, and Crane is forced to break his neck. Afterwards, Crane returns to Tower to inform Brecken of the news. Jade listens and, visibly upset, runs away and does her mission alone.
Meanwhile, a Tower scientist named Dr. Zere, who was trying to develop a cure for the virus in his research trailer, is kidnapped by Rais, causing Crane to go on a rescue mission. When he finds Zere, Crane is kidnapped by Rais too, who forces him to fight in an arena against groups of zombies including a huge monster. After the fight, Rais reveals to Crane that the file he stole contains proof that the GRE intended to sell the virus rather than develop a cure, and releases the file to the public. Crane manages to escape before being killed with moves that only someone trained would know how to do, and in the process, cuts off Rais' hand. Zere is killed in the rescue attempt, but manages to tell Crane that he turned his research over to Jade and that she was tasked with turning it over to another scientist named Dr. Camden.
As Crane searches for Jade, he discovers that the Ministry of Defense is planning to bomb Harran in an effort to completely eradicate the outbreak, claiming that there are no survivors left in the city. Crane manages to reactivate an antenna tower and broadcast a message to the outside world, thwarting the Ministry's plan. Later, when Crane goes to the game's second city, Jade is kidnapped by Rais, who also steals Dr. Zere's research. Crane manages to rescue Jade and retrieve a portion of Dr. Zere's research, but Jade reveals that she was bitten, and tells Crane to stop Rais. Jade then succumbs to the wound, forcing Crane to kill her without hesitation after she turns, breaking her neck too like he did to her brother.
After killing Tahir, Rais' right-hand man, with his own machete, Crane gives the tissue samples to Dr. Camden, who believes he is very close to finding a cure but needs the rest of Dr. Zere's research. Crane then discovers that Rais has made a deal with GRE, in which he will hand over Dr. Zere's research to them in exchange for Harran's extraction. Crane then invades Rais' headquarters (full of infected) and faces him on top of a building, just as a GRE helicopter appears. After much fighting and dialogue, Crane stabs Rais in the neck with a knife that Rais himself threw at him and throws him off the building, killing him.
In the end, Crane retrieves the research data and decides to hand it over to Dr. Camden instead of GRE, intending to stay in Harran and help the remaining survivors.
Dying Light: The Following DLC (2016) summary
The Following is a sequel of the story of the first game made in the form of a DLC, released in 2016. In the plot, Kyle Crane finds a survivor on the verge of death and hears him talk about a supposed cure for the virus. With the Tower running out of Antizin and Dr. Camden still unable to make a cure, Crane decides to go investigate this supposed immunity. He heads out into the countryside, where he discovers that many of the survivors have converted to a religious cult called Children of the Sun. They worship a deity known as Mother, who is apparently the source of immunity to the virus. To gain the cult's trust and learn more about immunity, Crane decides to help the survivors.
Eventually, one of the "Faceless", high-ranking members of the cult, approaches Crane and privately reveals that immunity is gained through a special elixir they discovered, but just like Antizin, this elixir just delays the infection and not completely cure it. The Faceless also reveal that they're working on a permanent cure and promise that, in exchange for his help, they will give Crane the cure to take back to Harran.
Crane is then tasked with helping a man named Atilla, who is working on an important project for the Mother. Atilla tells Crane that the Children of the Sun believe in a prophecy that a chosen one would rise to become the God of the Sun's prophet and cleanse away the infection. He also reveals that the Mother was Jasmine, the wife of a local military Colonel who was involved in the experiments that caused the outbreak, but was bitten during the outbreak. Before succumbing to the infection, the Colonel gave Atilla a secret code which Atilla passed on to Crane. Atilla then commits suicide in an attempt to invoke the prophecy, but the prophecy doesn't happen. Crane then discovers that the bandits left from the Rais gang have traveled to the countryside in search of the supposed cure as well. Rais' bandits plan an attack on the Mother's base at a nearby water dam, but when Crane arrives there, he finds both Rais' bandits and the Faceless dead.
Entering the water dam, Crane finds the Mother and discovers that she has been turned into a sentient volatile. She reveals that the water dam was a secret military facility that contained a special chemical. However, rather than being a cure for the virus, the elixir slowly turns whoever inhales it into a sentient volatile, as it did with the Mother. During the day, she is able to retain her mentality and has been given telepathic abilities to communicate, but at night, she becomes an uncontrollable wild monster. Mother tells Crane that the only way to stop the infection is to summon the God of the Sun to cleanse the land, sacrificing everyone in Harran in the process (in other words, she claims that Crane himself is the God of the Sun). At this point, Crane has two choices: listen to Mother or defy her.
If Crane chooses to defy the Mother, she attacks him, forces him to drink the elixir, and tries to kill him, but Crane eventually prevails and kills her. Taking what's left of the elixir, Crane climbs out of the dam of water, suffering continual blackouts, and finds himself in a populated area apparently outside the quarantine, but finds out that his exposure to the elixir has already turned him into a sentient volatile. As night falls, Crane, who is already infected, lets out a wild scream as a random woman and her children look on in terror. Basically, Crane turns into a powerful, evolved creature and the story ends.
If Crane chooses to listen to the Mother, she takes him to a nuclear warhead that was originally supposed to be a failsafe to contain the outbreak. Crane enters the code Atilla gave him and activates the warhead, presumably destroying all of Harran and killing all survivors and infected, taking the virus with them. Then the story ends with everyone dead. (I hate this ending lol)
Dying Light 2 (2022) summary
The zombie outbreak in Harran (depicted in the first game) ended with the presumed deaths of all of the city's inhabitants, with no reports of survivors. The GRE was able to develop a vaccine for the Harran virus, ending the threat of the zombie pandemic. Despite promises to cease all research on the virus, the GRE continued to conduct experiments in secret. In 2021, a mutated variant of the virus called "Tachytransmissive Harran Virus" (THV) escaped from a GRE laboratory and started a pandemic that spread faster than the epidemic in Harran, sweeping the world in an event known as "The Fall". The vaccine and Antizin are ineffective against the new THV virus, but their effects can be suppressed with ultraviolet light.
In 2036, fifteen years after the Fall, much of the world's population has been wiped out. Human civilization has been reduced to a handful of scattered settlements, with the fictional European city Villedor being one of the last known remaining cities. Originally quarantined by the GRE, Villedor was spared the worst of the pandemic thanks to its quarantine walls that kept the infected hordes out of the city. Control of the city is split between three factions: the military known as Peacekeepers, the Bazaar Survivors, and the violent Renegades.
In Dying Light 2, the main character is Aiden Caldwell, a pilgrim. Pilgrims are the few humans who dare to travel between settlements, undertaking dangerous missions. Aiden is 20 years old and has lived as a pilgrim since he was 14.
Aiden's goal is to find his sister Mia, whom he lost in the beginning of the global contamination. Both he and Mia were guinea pigs for secret tests, of which we only learn the purposes in the middle of the game.
However, Aiden has abilities that other humans do not. He is stronger, faster and jumps higher, perfect for becoming a pilgrim.
The game takes place in the city of Villedor, where the three aforementioned factions seek to save humanity, but in extremely different ways.
In the story, Aiden heads to the city of Villedor after being notified that there is an informant who knows Waltz's whereabouts, a doctor who experimented on Aiden and Mia when they were children, in hopes that Waltz will know Mia's location. Aiden finds the informant, but is bitten by a volatile and infected. The informant gives Aiden a working GRE electronic key, warning him that if Waltz gets his hands on it, Villedor will be doomed. He tells Aiden to take the key to a place called "Fish Eye" and give it to a woman named Lawan. Afterwards, the informant is captured and killed by Waltz while Aiden flees, going towards Villedor.
Due to the lack of a biomarker, a kind of bracelet that tracks the progress of a person's infection, Aiden is nearly killed by scared citizens, but is saved by Hakon, one of the villagers. Hakon explains that tensions in Villedor are high due to the Peacekeepers' commander, Lucas, having recently been murdered, and the Peacekeepers believe the Bazaar survivors are responsible, risking the start of a war between the two factions. Hakon helps Aiden obtain a biomarker and tries to smuggle Aiden into the Central Loop city, where the "Fish Eye" is located. The player can choose to side with the Bazaar leaders (Carl and Sophie) or Aitor, an officer of the Peacekeepers. Both promise Aiden that they will smuggle him into the Central Loop, the game's second city, as the two factions go to war.
Regardless of who Aiden supports, he discovers that it was Hakon who killed the Peacekeepers' commander, Lucas, on Waltz's orders. Waltz confronts Aiden, demonstrating superhuman abilities as he steals the GRE electronic key from him. Aiden chases Waltz to an abandoned car factory, where he uses the key to activate a machine before a woman named Lawan intervenes, incapacitating Waltz long enough for Aiden to retrieve the key and escape. Lawan reveals that she was one of Waltz's test subjects as well and seeks revenge on him. With the key, Aiden and Lawan manage to enter the Central Loop city, where they see electricity suddenly restored in the city due to Waltz's use of the key. Aiden then meets with another Peacekeeper commander, Jack Matt, and the former leader of the now-defunct Night Runners group, Frank.
After reactivating an antenna tower on the tallest and most dangerous building in the city, Aiden learns the identity of a GRE doctor (and Bazaar resident) named Veronika Ryan. Aiden returns to the Bazaar and finds Veronika, who is hiding from the Renegades. Together they head to a GRE facility called Observatory, where the GRE database is located. After accessing the database, Aiden finds no information to aid his search for Mia, but discovers that Waltz, by reactivating Villedor's power plant, also reactivated a GRE failsafe protocol calling for missile strikes to destroy Villedor. Waltz suddenly arrives to take the key, and while fighting him, Aiden loses control of his infection and kills Veronika just as a missile destroys the Observatory and Waltz escapes with the key.
Lawan finds and pulls Aiden from the rubble after the missile destroyed that place. Aiden warns her that Waltz's experiments on him in the past could inevitably make him turn into a temporary infected at any time and that he is very dangerous because of it. He also tells Lawan that he killed Veronika when this happened. However, he fails to stop Lawan from chasing the leader of the Renegades, Colonel Williams. Williams claims that he originally stopped the missile attacks, but Waltz resumed them. Not wanting to see Villedor destroyed, Williams tells Aiden to go to the X13 lab to confront Waltz and stop the missiles.
Aiden and Lawan get in the place and are shocked to discover that X13 is supposed to be a survival shelter for GRE employees, with huge stockpiles of supplies. Lawan rescues Hakon after he tries to protect them from the Renegades, leaving Aiden to continue on alone. While going through X13, he discovers that it is the facility where he was a guinea pig.
Aiden confronts Waltz, who reveals that Aiden's memories were incorrect, and that Mia is actually Waltz's daughter and that he has been trying to heal her for the last 15 years. Waltz refuses to abort the missile launches as that would require shutting down X13, whose facilities are needed to heal Mia, forcing Aiden to fight him. Aiden is finally able to defeat Waltz, who succumbs to his injuries, but the GRE key is destroyed in the fight. Lawan then tells Aiden that she plans to detonate explosives to destroy the missiles before they can be launched, which will destroy X13 and kill her. The player must choose between trying to save Mia or Lawan.
If the player chooses to save Lawan, he will get her out of X13. However, Aiden is unable to stop the missile attack, which destroys Villedor and kills most of the population. Aiden then leaves the city due to his infection, continuing his journey as a pilgrim. Depending on the player's choices during the game, Hakon can leave the city with him.
If the player chooses to save Mia, he will get her out of X13. The X13 is destroyed in the explosion and the city is spared from destruction. Mia dies soon after due to her weakened state and is buried by Aiden. Meanwhile, Villedor falls under the control of the faction the player has most supported since the beginning of the game. However, Aiden finally decides to leave Villedor due to his infection and continues his journey as a pilgrim. Depending on the player's choices during the game, Hakon can save Lawan from X13's destruction and Aiden can leave town with her afterwards.
And these were the summaries of Dying Light and Dying Light 2. The next chapter will be the beginning of my story. See you guys there.