Screenshots & trailers
What players say
Why the number is what it is: aspect mentions counted across 421 sampled Steam reviews (386 positive / 35 negative), recent and most-helpful. Plain keyword counting, fully reproducible; nothing here is written by a machine.
What positive reviews talk about
- Story & writing17% mention it
- World & exploration6% mention it
- Combat6% mention it
- Visuals & art5% mention it
- Multiplayer & servers4% mention it
What negative reviews complain about
- Story & writing26% mention it
- Combat23% mention it
- Controls & UI20% mention it
- Progression & loot14% mention it
- Grind & repetition14% mention it
Satisfaction by hours played
Same score, different games: see how sentiment holds up the longer people play.
Under 5h
83%
40 reviews
5-15h
88%
76 reviews
15-40h
94%
149 reviews
40-100h
94%
97 reviews
100h+
93%
59 reviews
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 74 | 30 |
| Creator reviews (5 tracked) | – | 75 | 2 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 95% | 90 | 1694 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | 84 | 65 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 94% | 88 | 3000 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: since the last significant patch (Jun 24, 2025) · 300 reviews sampled · 43094 total reviews in window · weighted 229.6 up / 16.1 down · computed 1h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (132)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 50
“Dying Light desperately tries to be all of the videogames in a bid to impress everybody. If only it had tried as hard to be its own thing, we’d have had an amazing horror game on our hands. Instead, we just have another indistinct jack-of-all-trades to throw on top of the ever growing pile.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“Dyling Light's problem is that it also brings everything else that comes with open-world games with it, and it's a poor, uninteresting fit with how strong the free-running is.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“As it stands Dying Light is perhaps the first game of the year, which is not a remake or a remaster, worth getting your hands on. Thanks to strong core mechanics in its combat and traversal it remains a joy to play even when the missions promise otherwise. The zombie apocalypse maybe a setting that's done to death but Techland proves there's still some life in the concept with Dying Light.”
read full review ↗ - 75
“Although we have smashed sluggish zombies hundreds of times, this convention still has its loyal fans. Thanks to Techland's Dying Light, the list of titles with which they will spend at least a few dozen successful hours has just expanded by another position.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“The end result is something that feels like little more than the finished product of a well-oiled entertainment machine, a safe appeal to a mass audience. This is unfortunate since there is genuine joy to be had in simply navigating Techland's fictional city. If the same attention was paid to narrative development and visual design as has obviously gone into the player character's movement, Dying Light's world would be much more inviting.”
read full review ↗ - 70
- 82
“Dying Light is a breath of fresh air in such an already well-known genre the games involved with the zombi universe. The mix of parkour and walking dead makes the offering a fancy result, with few technical issues. ”
read full review ↗ - 80
“I think it's safe to say that Dying Light is one of the most enjoyable zombie based games I've played in quite some time. The game certainly ups the ante a bit by tossing in some solid parkour movement mechanics, four player co-op, and optional, but fun, competitive multiplayer. All of these elements blend in nicely with a more mature narrative when compared to other games in the genre.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Even with a forgettable plot and tacked-on versus multiplayer mode, Dying Light is still a solid open world experience that will satisfy any zombie enthusiast for well over 20 hours.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“The pacing jumps up 10 notches and things become interesting due to the powerful super zombies and the urgency to not stay in a single place kicks in. It breaks up the monotony and it is these moments of originality that make Dying Light stand out from other games of this ilk, and is why it comes thoroughly recommended.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“Some will love it, others will hate it, but Dying Light is an interesting experiment at least.”
read full review ↗ - 85
“Dying Light is a genuinely great zombie game that stands apart from the crowd through its parkour mechanics and clever day-night system, anyone willing to learn to fear the nights of Harran will find a gripping survival experience.”
read full review ↗
The Jimquisition
Slant Magazine
Gadgets 360
GRYOnline.pl
Paste Magazine
The Angry Joe Show
Total Gaming Network
VGChartz
Cubed3
Pure Xbox
gamefinity…and 120 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- DYING LIGHT FIX 1.55Mar 19, 2026
- Dying Light Franchise Update - August 2025Aug 19, 2025
- Dying Light: Retouched Update - HotfixJul 8, 2025
- Dying Light Retouched UpdateJun 26, 2025
- Ten Years Later - Dying Light: Retouched Update Releasing June 26Jun 24, 2025significant · resets scoring window
- Patch 1.49 is Live!May 5, 2022significant · resets scoring window
- Be The Zombie UpdateMay 3, 2022significant · resets scoring window
- Final Hellraid UpdateMay 2, 2022significant · resets scoring window
- Hellraid - Face the Darkness in the new story updateDec 9, 2021significant · resets scoring window