Dying Light is one of those high-profile games that’s circled around PS4 and Xbox One owners’ conscience for more than two years now. The open-world zombie game by most accounts looks like it’ll offer hours of undead-slashing fun. Today we got our first peek at the Dying Light opening cinematic, giving us a chance to see what the game has in store when it releases in January.
Dying Light is officially billed as an “open-world action survival game,” though the brunt of the action revolves around zombies. And really, isn’t that the best type of action? As in several other such games, the zombies aren’t purely undead, but the victims of a virus.
The Dying Light opening cinematic goes into this back story in more detail than we’ve previously seen. It does so in the form of a news broadcast voiceover, though no film footage of the zombies is shown. Instead, the Dying Light opening cinematic uses some sharp 3D “statues” of people who have been infected and the fighters who are battling them.
The intro paints the background for a mysterious outbreak in the ill-fated city of Harran which the rest of the world can do little to help, setting the stage for a political tug-of-war between Harran’s Ministry of Defense and the Global Relief Effort, a privately funded international humanitarian organization.
Players assume the role of Kyle Crane, an undercover operative sent on an infiltration mission to the quarantine zone established to contain the unknown plague. At first the mission seems necessary and morally clear. As the story advances, Kyle’s mission may prove more sinister or manipulative than it seems.
Xbox One and PS4 owners in North America can look forward to a Dying Light release date of January 27, 2015. The Dying Light release date in Asia, Australia and New Zealand is Jan. 28, while Europeans get the game on Jan. 30. Dying Light will also release on PC.
