Video Gamers Podcast - Hijack a Host: Ryan’s Dying Light Deep Dive [REMASTERED] – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Gaming host Josh, Ryan and Ace are here for this special Hijack a Host episode to dive deep into the chaotic, pulse-pounding world of Dying Light. From its groundbreaking parkour mechanics to its gritty story of survival, Ryan explores why this title continues to stand tall in the world of gaming. How does Dying Light’s blend of horror and open-world freedom hold up years later—and what does it still teach us about game design today? Whether you’re revisiting one of your favorite video games or discovering it for the first time, this episode is packed with insight, passion, and plenty of undead action. Join us as we break down how Dying Light reshaped expectations for video games and why it remains one of the most ambitious entries in modern gaming. Don’t miss this thrilling Hijack a Host episode of the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and Night Wizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Ryan got hijacked to play Dying Light, and it's time to find out how it went. But before we get to his zombie-filled escapades, some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh, and joining me, he's the man of the moment, the hijackie himself, the zombie whisperer. It's Ryan. Let's just say that I may have not been sleeping too well, but I've definitely been playing this game. So we'll get into it shortly.

Oh, it's either giving Ryan nightmares or taking some sleep away. I guess we're going to find out. And joining us, he may love zombies, but not enough to play this game for more than an hour. He's our resident noob for this episode. It's a news. No, no, listen, guys, I got to. a plan here. New, new, new, new. Hey, you remember when A

said, hey, man, I got gifted a copy of this. I'm totally going to play this with you guys. I remember. That way we can all talk about dying light together. I remember. Yeah, I definitely, I remember that for sure. But you see, I had this plan in mind where I'll be the listener for this episode so like, I can ask the questions the listeners are thinking about. Oh, okay. That's one, you know, way to think ahead, man. Yeah. That's really Yeah, that's really unique. You know, way to take one for the team, A's. I love it.

You know. I also put like 20 hours in the 80s, too. I thought I was like the guy that, I thought I was the guy that went above and beyond by putting in like eight hours into dying light, even though I didn't have to play this game, you know, but just, you know, what a guy. What a guy. For a guy. Well, welcome in everybody. For those that are not aware, our hijack a host is a perk for supporting the show. everybody's got that friend that they wish they could make play a game.

If it's like, bro, if you just play this game, I know you'd like it. And, you know, that is something that we have been doing for a long time now. Our community gets to vote on a host to hijack and a game to make them play. This month, they chose Ryan to play Dying Light. You know, our community is getting smarter because they also gifted Dying Light to Me and Ace at the same time. And kind of went, here you go, guys, just in case. I apparently am a sucker. and was like, okay, I'll play some dying light.

Let me check this out. Ace, on the other hand, was like, I hate free gifts. Baham bug, don't send me free games. I'm not going to play him because I'm playing Hades too. All right, I'd like to clarify it. I did. It probably sounded something like that. I played enough of it to the point where like, if we wanted to play multiplayer, we could have.

We never did. Ace got through the key button. It got through the tutorial. Good job. I'm proud of you. It's not Ace's fault that Hades. two just suddenly released out of nowhere. Yeah, what the heck man.

Yeah. So, so we are going to, so we do not share our thoughts on a game. So everybody that is listening is going to find out with Ace and I what Ryan thinks about dying light and his time with it. I have some thoughts on the game as well. So we will get into that here in just a second. But guys, we've got some new supporters of the show to thank. And what's that people that are listening? Like, wait, you guys thank people on the air? You're darn right. We do because people that support this show or what makes this podcast possible. And the least we can do is say thank you to the people that do that.

Like these two fine people, we've got just JT 2000 and a guy named Sean that spells his name weird. So just JT 2000 and Shaun, Shaoon, Shaoos, or Akaa, thank you. A.k.a. Marsh, that's my, that's my buddy. and thank you for the support man uh love you love you give you a shout out i know it was your buddy ryan which is why i kind of picked on him just a little bit you know if you're if you support the show well it's that's good because you're his favorite so oh well there you go so you know what shown you're my favorite too now i love it i'm going to start calling him that now when we go golfing

thank you to everybody that supports this podcast if you are supporting the show you are making this podcast possible to everybody else out there. Oh, you freeloaders that are listening to this show? We still love you. That's okay. We love you too. We love you too. But thank a supporter for making it possible.

Yeah. So, uh, and then Ryan, you have a review to read. We are almost caught up on these reviews, guys. We're getting there. It's time if you have not written us a review and you listen on Apple Podcasts. Take a second. Write us a review because there's a good chance we're going to read it on the show like this one that Ryan's got for us.

Yes, this review was written by Mr. Dreads, and it is titled Great Pod and Community, which I thoroughly agree with. I've been looking for a fun video game podcast for a few days and landed here. Not only do I love you guys, honest and fair reviews of games and your commitment that games should be fun, I joined the Discord, and the first message I was sent. I got a response from Ace immediately, and it made me feel welcome. Can't wait for more content Happy gaming Yeah

I gotta love it Good job Ace I'm proud of We always try We always say like join the Discord It's our Oasis Obviously you know Leave a review if you can

But if you hop in the Discord We always try to hop in right away And just welcome everybody that joins And what are your favorite games What do you like to play And the community always does a good job Of that too So if we can't get to them first

Somebody else asks them But it's a great place to be So links in the description if you want to join up. It's an awesome place. I agree. It really is. Yeah, there's 1100 plus gamers in there. So it's not some tiny little server where you're going to feel awkward.

There are people with all sorts of game tastes. It's hard to keep up now, dude. I love it. But it is. But also at the same time, it's kind of like you just kind of sit back and smile. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Because you're like, dude, look at this.

Look at everybody chatting and having fun. People are teaming up. They're playing games. And I mean, now the Battlefield 6 is out at the same time. people are squadden up for that man i mean it like i said it's it is the awesomest place to be a gamer to hang out with other gamers the link is in the episode description there as well all right ryan i mean we got to get into this buddy because you got picked to play dying light uh i do want to you know we do a pre-show we kind of uh reveal the game to our supporters of the show they can watch that

on patreon but for the people that you know maybe didn't get to say that or listen to that. When you got picked for dying light, I'll be honest, I have heard of this game. You had said, I know the name and that's about it. We didn't know anything about it. When you look this up, what were your initial? This is pre-play time, Ryan. Like, what did you think about what you knew about dying light and what were your thoughts kind of before you even touched the game? Did you think you were going to like it? Was it like, oh, man, this isn't really my kind of game. What did you think there? This one was hard because I don't know, I don't know how we missed this one. I remember the name. I remember vaguely kind of hearing about it and seeing

this back in the day. But, you know, I was so, you know, what did this come out? 2015? 2015. Yeah. So, like, I was, you know, there was a few other games I was diving into at that point in time. But, yeah, I was, uh, I was curious to, to see my response because I am a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic world, zombies, all that stuff, even though they freak me the heck out. Like, I love, I love looking at the atmosphere of a world where time stopped and man disappeared and chaos happened and, you know, the apocalypse is there. So that type of stuff always is a good ringer for me. So I was definitely very curious, but also, you know, there's a lot of really bad zombie

games too. So I was unsure what this one was going to be because we didn't hear a lot about it. I didn't play it and it did fly under our radar. So it was kind of like, you know, it was a, it was a random kind of type game. Like, oh, what is this? Okay, well, I guess I'll check it out, you know. So did you think you were going to like it?

Like, in all honesty, because we're always honest with stuff. And I mean, there's many a game where I'm like, bro, I don't think I'm going to like this game. I got picked to play a game that will announce later that I was like, bro, I don't know. I'm just telling you all right now, this was a risky one. but like did you think like yeah this is up my alley like you know did you go into this thinking like this game looks awesome i'm excited to play it or was it more like the oh man i don't know um i definitely

went in with an open mind but i was a little pessimistic on my what my thoughts were going to be obviously all that's in my brain right now is battlefield like that's all i want to play we had uh had aides hades was coming up hadies two was coming up we had some other games you know that that um I still haven't been able to get a chance at. Snake Eater, Delta, I still, I've only got a few hours into that where I really want to dive into. And so I was definitely, man, I'm going to have to play this dumb game. It kind of looks a little, you know, old and dated, you know, am I going to like it? Am I not?

You know, let's see how the mechanics still play out. Did they hold up? So I wasn't, I wasn't super optimistic, but I was also kind of going in with an open mind for sure. Yeah, that's tough to do. I mean, I know it's easy for people listening to be like, well, just have. an open mind about this game that you're being forced to play. That's the hard part. But sometimes you kind of, yeah, I mean, you know, we're gamers, man.

And sometimes if you tell me I have to play a cozy game, I'm going to approach that game and going like, I don't think I'm going to like this, man. Yeah. And we always, we always, we always try to, any of these hijack a host and games that were forced to play, we always try to put 10, 15 plus hours in to really dedicate the time so we can give a good honest review on what we've experienced, you know, and even, even if it's tune town and you've got to play quite a bit of it that's what we'll do that's our dedication to the podcast it is it is so okay so let's do this ace you did play the tutorial i did yes and then

you kind of stop so you at least know what the game looks like and kind of what the game mechanics are i put in eight hours into this game um i will say since it's not my opinion that matters on this one i will say i think this is a pretty good video game man You know, I was kind of surprised for a game that's 10 years old how good this game looked, how good the parkour mechanics are because the parkour is a huge part of this game. You are running through town and running along rooftops and avoiding these zombies and stuff like that. I thought that the characters were not so memorable. I know a lot of people in our community were talking about, you know, you play as crane, the main character.

And you, you know, there are these different factions and these different characters. in those factions and I'll be honest, I kind of went like, yeah, these are not the best characters I've seen in a video game. They're not really grabbing me a whole lot. But then again, I didn't get far enough in to really care about them a whole lot either. But for people that are completely uninitiated to dying light, you know, I would describe this game as a zombie survival game with a lot of parkour elements. There is a story to the game. Ryan, I'm assuming that you know a lot more about the story than either Ace or I do. How would you describe the gameplay loop, Ryan?

You know, as the person that's put 30 plus hours into this at this point, you know, give us the summary of like, what is the gameplay loop in Dying Light? So for this game, it was a lot, like you said, there's a lot of park core elements. There's a lot of kind of jumping around on rooftops. I remember doing the like tutorial that Ace did and you did as well, obviously. And being like, what?

why am I jumping off this platform to this? Like, why am I doing parkour? You know, I just kept picturing the office, you know, parkour, parkour, as I was going through. And then I'm like, and then you start the game and you're like, oh, okay, that's why I'm doing this. Because it saves your freaking butt, like, to get away from all these zombies. So, yeah, I think the gameplay loop itself is a lot of go out, do this mission, collect materials, collect supplies, come back, rest,

stock and then kind of rinse and repeat. I think they did it well, how they set that up. There is a desire to go back and drop off supplies or drop off, because they'll have these supply drops, you know, drop in into the dead zone that you're in, and you have to race there, to race against time, you've got to fight off zombies, and then you've got to fight off other factions to get to the materials.

So it is a constant, there's always something to do as you go out. There's almost too much to do sometimes when you look at your map, But yeah, it's just head out, pick something on the marker on your map, and you can go and go have fun and then come back to home base at some point and kind of restock. What would you like equate Dying Light 2 if you had to like compare it to any other kind of game? Because when I first started it, I was like, oh, is this like a first person dead rising or like Far Cry? Those were the two that jumped to mine for me. Yeah. Yeah.

I'd say that's probably a good comparison for sure. I mean, I loved, I thought the crafting elements were pretty cool. in this game where you can, you really do like you just, and I'm like a little, a little gerbil or whatever, just pack rat running through when I go and I check every room and I gather every material.

So then when I need it, I can like craft whatever I need. So there is a lot of really unique crafting elements and then the first person kind of nature of it. It does lend itself to those games for sure. I think that's a good comp. All right. I was going to say,

I definitely got Far Cry vibe. from just the kind of overarching way that the game plays with the map with all the points of interest. Like you said, Ryan, it's more just pick something, go to it and see what happens kind of thing. I would say Dead Island with the, you know, you are playing as a, you know, mostly melee in the beginning. A lot of melee. I never got a gun. I'm assuming I know there's guns in the game because I'm crazy, but I just never made it that far. So for me, this was very much like playing Dead Island where it is just meleeing zombies until, you know, I actually kill them.

But yeah, I think those are probably the two most, like, closest, you know, ways to explain the game is to me, I got Far Cry vibes. I mean, that that's probably the closest that I would say that this game plays like. Now, I will say that I think that the parkour elements in this game are really well done. there is nothing like running along these rooftops jumping across a gap grabbing onto a ledge of a balcony climbing up things this is to me i have to give them kudos because if you can see something you can climb on it you know an awning over a grocery store it's like yep you can climb up that and then you know these grates over a window yep you can climb up that and the parkour and the climbing in this game was so well done to me it was so intuitive with the way

it's just like, dude, you want to grab that ledge? Just look and jump at it. And the game knows. And it's like, this is great, man. Like, I don't know how they develop this system, but kudos to the developers because it is one of the core gameplay elements in dying light. And I think they did it so well that it's like, okay, this is the DNA of this game, in my opinion.

It's very intuitive to the environment as well as like just the general world. Like, because they tell you like, do you don't want to be on the ground? Always stay up high. keep parkoring, don't get on the ground. It's like, okay, yeah. And then they make it super easy to stay above everything. So you're never like clashing. Yeah.

There's a way where there's certain areas, you know, you can't get through. And then they have spots where, you know, you don't jump into like, you know, a la Assassin's Creed where you jump into the haybills. You jump into giant piles of trash, you know, to land if you need to get down quickly. But I agree. I think the parkour elements were, um, were one of my favorite. favorite features in this game. I absolutely love. I love platformers. I love speed running. That's why I loved Astrobot so much. I love just the quick Twitch, move, jump, jump, move, jump,

and the way you work through the map or the way you work through an area to get somewhere. So, I think they did a brilliant job on that. And it, in it, honestly, it held up really, really well. It was way better than I was anticipating as far as kind of that part of it goes. I was going to, I'm like, man, what are the mechanics going to be like? What's it going to play like? How's it going to feel? And it felt intuitive. It felt natural.

Once you got a flow, you could just go across the map. And you just, it was part of the DNA of the game, like you said. Like you just ran, you jumped and you climbed. And like, that was just what you did. Like it was innate. It just happened. So, yeah, I love that part. Yeah, yeah, that system's really, really well done.

All right, I want to talk about the zombies in this game, because what's a zombie game without? really cool zombies, but we're going to do that right after this break. All right, we're back. We're talking dying light. The parkour in this game is second to none. I will say, Ryan, you kind of mentioned before the break that, you know,

this game holds up. I will say, this game did not feel like it was 10 years old to me. No. Like, you know, I'm pretty critical of like aged games and quality of life things and that. Dude, dying light for a game that's 10 years old absolutely stands the test of time. It was right on that line. Elements.

It was right on that line. Yeah. It was close, but it was so good. You're starting to get glimpses of like, I can tell this game's a little older, but man, I feel like it was way ahead of its time when it came out. Like that's something where it's like, if I had played this game in 2015 when it released, I think my mind would have been blown, dude. Yeah, I agree. Like, honestly. All right. So it is a zombie game.

You know, I got, you know, these are your classic dumb zombies. They're attracted to noise. But all of a sudden, you hear somebody running behind you and you turn around and look. There's a zombie sprinting and following you? And you're like, wait a minute. What the heck of this? No, thank you. I hear that freaking noise on my nightmares, dude.

Oh, my gosh. And you see the red triangle on the map. You're like, oh, no. Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. And it's that they're quick, man. You can't outrun these guys really.

So then I was like, okay, well, this is cool. And then you start to see like the big giant zombies where they're these lumbering brutes. You know, you come across. one of those fairly early and this guy's got a huge piece of like concrete at the end of rebar and he's swinging it at you and you're like whoa okay and then nighttime hits and the game makes a big deal about nighttime in this game i did experience the the volatiles as they call them uh they're they're named something different than just zombies because these things are on another level and dude i don't know that i've ever been more scared uh of nighttime at a video game

before because my goodness dude things take a drastic turn when night hits Ryan what did you think about this I mean I was really impressed with the way that nighttime just in like put fear into me and I remember thinking like oh I'll just totally run I'll parkour my way out of these these volatiles that are chasing me ace is shaking his head because it's like no dude they know how to parkour they're climbing ledges they're climbing up on the roof like oh dude it it happens like in the tutorial you get left out in the middle of the night. I ran all the way back to the safe house on highway signs. Like I did not get down. I stayed up there. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, I know there's a large variety. I mean, I only came across a

couple in my like eight hour play through, but I have heard people talk about how you really get some crazy volatiles and stuff out there. So just general, you don't have to go through the whole list of zombies, but like, do you feel like the game represented like zombies in a good way? Did you feel threatened by them? You know, did the, did the volatiles really kind of up the ante as far as like fear and making night, like, feel dangerous to you? Yes. I think they did a really good job at that.

I know you were a big guy on progression. So throughout the game, you, you initially you start, you know, and you do your tutorial and you see the volatiles, but you don't really have to deal with them if you don't go out at night. And so you see these regular zombies and they're there. But then you start having to do missions where you have to go out at night and you have to do certain stuff or get certain samples. And, you know, for people who haven't played this game, you know,

you have a mini map and you'll see them. They have their little co-nivision and they can still here too. And they'll be all over kind of like security guards at a base or something on some type of game like that where you got to avoid them. Because if they catch you, you're in trouble. And then more come and you've got to run and they're fast. They can climb. They can, they can, and then you just hear this screeching coming after you.

So they did such a good job creating that tense panic to where, like, you were afraid to go out of night, but you get a lot more points and XP at night. So all your parkour abilities where you level up when you kill zombies, all that stuff is multiplied at night. So it's an incentive to go out and do these things, you know, when you may not want to. So I think they did a really good job of balancing. that act of making it crazy and scary and difficult, but also rewarding you on that. So when it started to get kind of mundane with the regular zombies, you know, they put those runners in, and then they could climb. And you're like, oh, what? This one can climb and you're

kicking it off the side of a car and stuff. And then the next thing you get these volatiles, you know, and then it gets even worse as you progress. So I think they did a really good job upping the ante with these zombies and making them more difficult or more scary, if you will, you know, as you progress through the game. So as far as the zombies themselves, I think they definitely served them well and did a good job on what they've created in this world. Yeah, I like the fact that there were like not, I didn't come across any like mega hordes of zombies, but there were definitely like I could tell that they were becoming more prolific

and like what was like two or three zombies standing together was now more like 10 or 15 zombies standing together in certain areas. Yeah. And so it was like, you know, you can use sound against them. So firecrackers and you'll draw them away. And it was almost like there's a little bit of like stealth based to the gameplay as well. Oh yeah. They don't overdo it.

But it's definitely like, you know, a part of the game to try to like get through certain situations being stealthy. Other times you're relying on your parkour. Sometimes you're just smashing them in a face. with a monkey wrench. Now, I will say this, and I'm going to say this for every game that has this in it. I hate weapon durability. I hate it more than anything.

And dude, look, look, if you want to tell me that my baseball, my wooden baseball bat is going to break after I smash like 800 zombies in the face with it, I can buy that, man. It's a baseball bat, right? But if you're telling me that my solid steel pipe wrench is going to break because I happen to

hit something in the face 20 times with it. Like, that's a different story, man. And dude, every freaking time I would get a weapon and I would upgrade it and you can do all these different attachments and elemental things to the weapons. Like the crafting system in this game, the weapon system in this game is incredibly deep. But why is my crap breaking all the time? It's a lunky wrench. I could run over this thing with a steamroller and it would be just fine.

And you're telling me that soft zombie flesh is all of a sudden. breaking my monkey range? Come on, man. Dying light, breath of the wild. They don't break at least. Well, okay, and this is, this is what I thought of immediately is like Zelda. I hated it there too. I, you know, and normally, like, I, I hate it in Zelda.

And I hate it in most games. You know me, I hate stamina bars. So, like, a lot of this stuff, I hate, I did not mind it in this game because, I mean, maybe it was just because of me because I'm just like a bloodhound and I search out all the material. So I always had stuff to fix my, my stuff. and repair my materials or my weapons, but I could understand why that would be frustrating,

because you can get these things, especially when you upgrade them, you can add like perks, you can have an electrical pipe wrench that then has like extra jolt and you can electrocute zombies and it could chain. And, you know, so there's a lot of cool, neat things you can do, but sometimes the materials are hard to come by.

And if it's almost broken, then you can't use anymore because you don't want to break, so then you've got to switch to some, dumb monkey ranch that does a third of the damage, you know, and then that breaks and then you're, then you're just running for your life. So I could see why, why that would be frustrating to people, you know, when you don't, when you don't have all the materials to repair the stuff. Weapon durability is a terrible thing in games, dude. Like, honestly, I just, I hate it. It's like, stamina I can at least understand, dude. Like, I have limited stamina. I can't park

and jump across rooftops without getting tired. That at least makes sense. You know, and again, some weapons, if you want to give me a glass katana, like, okay, sure, that might break. You know, I can get that. But a freaking monkey wrench is not breaking, man. I don't care what I smash it into. It's not breaking. Yeah. It's like cast steel, you know?

Like, give me, just throw me a bone, man. Let me keep this one weapon. I had this awesome machete and then after like, you know, however many zombies, it was like broken. I'm like, oh, come on, man, it's a machete. I'm just slicing through these lame zombies. Like, this would not break. At least your main character is a pretty

pretty great powerhouse when it comes to melee combat, drop kicking zombies off rooftops and coming in for the flying eagle. That's one thing. I don't know if you were going to get into that, Josh, at some point, but too, like we said, the progression, like where you can, you can upgrade all of these things. So you can upgrade your parkour abilities. You can upgrade your, your combat, your melee combat, your ability to craft. They did do a really, really good job on giving you a whole system to, you.

to kind of tailor the way that you play. So if you made a lot of items that you like to throw, you can get like electrocuting throwing stars. Oh, I was using them throwing stars. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like you can do all kinds of cool stuff if you want to be more range. Or if you're like in their face, you can upgrade like a slide knee kick to where you break their legs or you can stagger them.

Oh, the drop kick? Yeah. When you're running drop kick in the zombie in the chest. Yeah. Oh, it's so cool. Or just run and jump off of them. You can jump over them, catapult over their head onto the wall. And so they did a really good job on giving people the opportunity to play the way that they would want, which is what I actually really like that.

If you want to go combat heavy, you can go combat heavy. If you want to go super nimble and parkour and can evade just about anything, you can absolutely play it. That's kind of how I say. Yeah, Ace's point. That's how I play. Every box I opened, monkey wrench had no reach would break in like 20 hits. I was like, okay, not doing this. Yeah, yeah, I will say they gave you a very, this is a game that, like, gives you the tools and you play how you want to play, which I always respect that.

And I think it appeals to a wider range of people that way. You know, I did not go down the weapon path just because I'm like, bro, there's zombies. I don't want to fight like hordes and hordes of zombies. But chopping them up is pretty fun too. All right, listen, we're running a little low on time. Ryan, what works in this game and what didn't work for you? Oh man, honestly, there was a lot that worked. I put probably 35 hours into this game.

I did beat it. I played the full campaign through. My wife even came and said, you like that game, don't you? And I was like, I think I'm kind of like it. She's like normally when you're forced to play a game or you have to, you're like, oh, I got to go play this. I got to do this for the pod, you know?

And oh, what a horrible thing. We have to play video games. But some of them aren't as amazing or we're not enthralled. this one I was man so like a lot worked for me I absolutely love the environment in the world they created even though it's dated I think they did it very very well uh the parkour your ability to kind of traverse through the environment uh swimming and running and jumping and diving and rolling and all the stuff you can do you can even upgrade your parkour abilities like they did that amazingly well josh you didn't get guns ace i know you didn't either but like like once you get

the guns. Like, that's even better because then you have this crazy awesome stopping power where you can just blow the heads off zombies, but guns are loud. I don't know if anybody knows, but guns are loud. And then all the zombies comes. So yeah, you can shoot them down, but then how much ammo do you got? So, like, there's a big balancing act with a lot of that. So I think there is, there's a lot, like you said, too, Josh, like the story, I think a lot of the other stuff was amazing. The story left a lot to be desired. Reyes is the, the main honcho big bad guy he's the big bad i thought he was a really unique cool character i liked him a lot everyone else was forgetable for me like the story itself and i'm a big story guy especially

especially in like action RPGs and all that um everyone else was pretty much forgetable you didn't really feel a connection or a bond the big bad that was a really cool character i liked him a lot as well um but yeah other than that man i don't i don't think there's too much that didn't go well there was some graphical stuff issues with some stuttering, some T-poses that I ran into here and there, and some weird kind of things that way. But other than that, man, this game, if I, like you said, if I would have played this in 2015, 2016, it would score very, very high for me. I don't think that there was too much that they did wrong.

I don't know how this flew under my radar, but I freaking love this game, dude. I cracked out so hard on this. Like I said, I put in 30. I delayed Ghost of Yote. I was like, I was going to go play that. I downloaded it. I'm like, no, I got to, I got to beat, I got to be dying light. Like, what do you?

No, I got to go beat dying light. I got to finish this game, you know? So, and there's still so much more to do that I haven't done. And there's a new sequel, the, the beast or whatever that came out. I was going to ask you if this got you interested in the beast. I, I, I will absolutely at some point, I don't know when, we got a lot to play, but I will absolutely play the beast now. And thank you, hijackers, for forcing me to play this because I

freaking loved it, dude. This game was so good. I'm glad, man. You know, we don't talk about our thoughts on a game beforehand, but you did post a photo of Ghost of Yote like the splash screen that you were playing it. But then I saw Ryan is playing Dying Light and I went, I was downloading. I think he might be liking this, man. Like, if he's playing dying light still and Ghost of Yote is out, like I think that's a sign.

Let's play mind games with us. Yeah. I mean, dude, it is always incredible to me when we get forced to play a game and it really resonates with us. Like, that is the fun part of a game. This is why we do these hijack a hosts like this. You know, I'm glad that I got an opportunity to play this because just like, you know, all of us, I was completely ignorant to this franchise.

I was impressed by this game. I thought it was very well done. I think it held up very well. The only thing that was holding me back from playing more was the fact that Hades 2 came out. I had a big project at the house I was working on and just kind of life, kind of detracted some of my gaming time. But, you know, for me, I think that this game is an easy recommend for people. You can pick it up cheap at this point. It is kind of that sandboxy action-oriented, play it how you want to play it, melee, guns.

you know, great game mechanics. It seemed polished. I didn't run into any bugs or anything like that on my side. This is what most gamers want out of a game. I think the only thing to me was just that it was a little daunting as the guy that didn't have to play it, that I also went into this and kind of went, this game feels like it's like a massive game. Like there's so many things I could do. And I don't have the time to get that deep into it right now, which can be off-putting sometimes at the same time. So I was very impressed with my eight hours in this game. It does make me very curious for dying light the beast because it's like, okay, well, if they did this in 2015 and dying light the beast released in 2025, like how much better is the beast than the original dying light was. So all right, Ryan, hit us with your final rating on this game.

And would you recommend it to other people? Well, right off the bat, absolutely I would recommend. especially if you love like this world or this genre types of games. I think the progression is perfect. I think that the environment is awesome. Even though it's like you said, it's on that line of kind of the

dated world. I think it's, I think it holds up well. So absolutely recommend. If I played this when it came out, it would be easily in the nines for me. Since it's a little older and I ran to a couple little bugs, I'm going to say an 8.8.

It's a pretty good. Absolutely. I absolutely loved it. I think it was, I think it was fantastic. It holds up well, and it's a testament to like this genre of this type of game. I think most of everything

they did was awesome. Like it was, and like you said, it is daunting. This could have easily been 60, 70, 80 hours. It was, you run and then like you'll see blue marks on your map, and those are people you can go help. And like, you can go help somebody

like where zombies are trying to kill them. And then you can get prizes or you get favor and then you can get like, you know, rep boosts like from, you know, when you go back to the tower and stuff. So there's just, there's so much, uh, that you can do. Uh, not including like any DLC or updates or anything like that. So yeah, this is an absolute would recommend and it's, uh, it's a high,

high score for me. Nice. Yeah. I would, I would recommend it as well. Ace, if you ever get time and want to jump out. What I played, I enjoyed. I just got busy. So, you know, I'll just go off of you.

to for recommendations here. Dude, I'm saying like we should do like and even if any listeners want to play like and get the Beast and play online like I would absolutely do it. Uh, you know, maybe maybe in a little time after Battlefield kind of cools down when we're playing that. But

yeah, I will definitely play more of this game and more of the Beast. Nice. Yeah, the Beast looks really interesting to me because I think number one, the graphics look incredible, but it's like knowing how the game plays and knowing that this is the next evolution from this franchise is pretty,

pretty tempting for me. So all right, listen, that's going to do it for this episode. Everybody, thank you to our epic and legendary supporters. You are the ones that pick these games for us to play. If you would like to have a say in the hijacks,

you can sign up on Patreon. There's a link in the episode description in this episode. You can click that. You can be signed up in, you know, it only takes a couple minutes to do. We'll give you a shout out on the show. you get to vote on a game for one of us to play.

I'll just go ahead and put it out there just to tease the next hijack a host, but I got picked to play dokey dokey literature club. So if you want to see how that game, you know, resonates with a man in his mid-40s, you know, yeah, game. Nopey, nopy, I will say I definitely am going to have some thoughts on dokey dokey, And I have thoughts on the people that made me play it at the same time. But that will be the next hijack a host. And then make sure that you follow the show.

Click that plus button, that follow button in your podcast app. So you get all our episodes the day that they release. Join our Discord server. We've talked it up enough that you should know that you should be part of that. And again, if you want to support the show, there's a link in the episode description. There is no commitment. we give you a ton of perks like behind the scenes access, you know, special bonus recordings when we reveal these hijack a host games to each other and things like that as well.

So we definitely try to say thank you and make it worth your while. Ryan, I'm glad you enjoyed this one, buddy. It sounds like you had a really good time. I know the listeners are going to be really happy to hear that. We had some huge fans of Dying Light in our Discord server, and I think it's really going to make them happy that you really liked this game. So all right, that's going to do it for this one. everybody until next time happy gaming see ya peace out