Dying Light: Bad Blood Puts a New Spin on Battle Royale
At GDC 2018 was revealed Dying Light: Bad Blood, a multiplayer spinoff from the popular zombie open-world game Dying Light, that pits you against other players as you vie to be the last man standing, but in a small, focused way.
The game was tested by some gaming media, and they released some hands-on articles explaining the mechanics of the game.
Check out the gameplay video of the battle-royale mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMB3UKAUVts
Marshall Honorof from Tom’s Guide stated:
“I went hands-on with Dying Light: Bad Blood at GDC 2018, and my timid “I don’t play many competitive games” attitude quickly gave way to “taste my crowbar.” In Bad Blood, eight players compete against one another to collect blood samples from enormous zombie bosses. Collect enough samples, and you get to leave in a helicopter — assuming other players don’t steal them from you while you wait for extraction.
There are two factors that set Bad Blood apart from most battle royale-style games. The first is that there are only eight players, rather than 100. Games take about 10 minutes rather than 30, and you don’t have the luxury of waiting around for other players to kill each other. The second is that you’ll need to fight against AI opponents in addition to real players.
I played through two matches of Bad Blood, and very nearly escaped both times. Here’s how an average match plays out: You start at a randomized location on the map, with a small cache of supplies nearby. Perhaps you’ll get some improvised grenades, or a survival knife, or a medkit, or a crowbar. The important thing is that you’ll have just enough gear to start hunting zombies.
Killing run-of-the-mill zombies doesn’t really do you any good, but you can find “hives” that house much bigger undead bosses. These hulking brutes have a variety of skills, from spitting acid to rushing you and knocking you down with each blow. Generally speaking, though, you can take them out through a combination of smart weapon use and parkour platforming. When you defeat one, you’ll level up, increasing your strength and health. You’ll also get a handful of blood samples that you need in order to escape.”
Alex Donaldson from VG 24/7 stated:
“Rather than being strictly about survival, Bad Blood is all about aggression. You want to be the fastest and most proactive player, racking up zombie kills and seeing off other players if you encounter them. Survival isn’t good enough, since the end-game escape from the island objective is triggered by racking up kills and collecting loot. The limited number of objectives ensure players will run into each other, and in the rounds I play many of the deaths happened early on in rounds as players fought over precious resources.
It’s an intriguing direction for this multiplayer mode, but the important take-away is that it works. While it doesn’t have the high player counts, the threat of both zombies and real players combines with the race against time aspect to make for a thrilling experience.
Better still is how this rapid pace works with Dying Light’s movement – a game full of parkour, where you basically only stop sprinting to smash a zombie’s head in. It’s appropriate that even in a take on Battle Royale you shouldn’t be worrying about stealth or any sort of nuance – it’s just about making the undead bleed. It’s good shit.”
For more information on Dying Light: Bad Blood, visit this article’s sources from VG 24/7 and Tom’s Guide.
