Techland has only recently completed the 5th week of the community challenges for Dying Light, and this week, the challenge is to let the Beast loose. The change is not unusual by any means; it is merely the in-game vehicle named the Beast. Players are required to clear the whole infected area in Castor Woods by driving through it in the vehicle and if the community score reaches the targeted number, everybody receives rewards that are quite attractive. Among the prizes are a Blood Drive Car Skin, which is no less than a blood and guts mess, and Ol’ Rusty, who though looking like a piece of old junk, can still smash the heads of zombies like none other. More details about the rewards can be found on the Dying Light Outpost website.
What are community challenges and how do they work? Suppose they are the total playerbase goal that Techland sets for the players to achieve collaboratively. This week they are doing it by slaughtering zombies in an area using the Beast vehicle. All who participated will be rewarded if the kill target is met by the community through sufficient joining of players. It is a fabulous way to keep the players engaged and doing cooperatively even if you are technically playing solo. Usually, the rewards will be in the form of aesthetic items or special plans that cannot be obtained from anywhere else.
The player feedback has been a bit diverse. Some of them are very excited, for example, the user GamerMom1969 with the very brief but to-the-point comment “I NEED THAT SKIN!! Let’s Gooooooo!!! 😃💪”, on the contrary, others are treating the announcement as an opportunity to air some grievances. One of the grievances being the players are not asking for anything better than a bloody car skin but rather something else.
New Game Plus. This term can be found in about 50% of the replies. Ant_Thomas93 simply wrote “Still no new game plus? 😩”, while callam__xo was even more direct with “WE ONLY WANT NEW GAME+”. This has been a problem with community challenges – players are grateful for free content but would also love to see the NG+ feature being knock that would now let them play through the story with all their favorite characters and weapons completely upgraded. Austin Linn rather nicely put the suggestion forward with “Would be nice to have new game plus when doing those challenges :)” which I must say, yes, it would be a lot more fun engaging in the challenges with a character that is fully powered up.
Not so fast though; the replies also show there is confusion. A significant number of players are inquiring whether New Game Plus is going to be the legendary reward for this challenge, which… that is not going to happen. EldritchZombie specifically raised the question, “Is the Legendary reward New Game +?” and TranzitIsPog asked, “So did you guys mean to add the NG+ and legend level achievements this early or was that a mistake?” This shows either a communication gap exists or players are perhaps coming across something in the game files that makes them think NG+ is closer than we thought.
The very vehicle combat is also garnering mixed responses. User TyeMcN84 expressed his dissatisfaction in this manner, “You guys broke the spectral bat… now all the vehicles are fucking broke u hit 1 zombie and there god damn toast… do you guys test anything?” Oof. That does sound quite irritating. However, Beagle had a rather comic take saying, “How is there still a zombie population left after all these challenge kills haha 🤣” to which really the point is made – how many zombies are left in Castor Woods after multiple weeks of community challenges?
The whole blueprints issue is also increasingly becoming a concern among gamers. Some players are confused about how to properly use the rewards they get from these challenges. User grieswurst1371 referred to the rewards as “useless since we don’t have blueprints for the weapon” which opened up a lengthy thread of gamers clarifying how the system works. HexyCptnTripps, who seems to be a frequent participant in such discussions about the challenges, explained, “Everyone gets a blueprint… and you can upgrade them with manual pages.” Then, eveilleurNoir added, “Add the weapon to your inventory and you’ll automatically get the plan” – so, obviously, there is a bit of a learning curve for new players participating in these community events.
Moreover, HexyCptnTripps also said that they would not be starting the challenge until “your websites back up and counting my efforts” which suggests that the Outpost tracking site might have encountered some difficulties when the challenge was activated. It is always annoying when you are trying to support and you are not even sure if your kills count towards the overall community target.
Apart from this, there is an interesting discussion going on regarding the Beast mechanism itself. User Dying Light 2’s new space gear has players split over in-game store, while other platforms like PlayStation and Xbox continue to evolve their gaming ecosystems.
