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Prepared for your upcoming mission inside Dying Light: The Beast? Meet you on the other side of the map in roughly… Ten minutes? Or fifteen minutes? Truthfully, the exact time needed to get there walking or driving, as the new release clearly dislikes convenience and aims for the main character to suffer even further than before.

The omission of fast travel within this first-person adventure, the latest entry within a long-running series of action-packed survival titles, is undoubtedly intended to encourage exploration, but all it does for me is to cause annoyance. Although carefully considering the reasons that explain this expansive undead adventure shouldn’t include quick transport, all of them disappoint — similar to the main character, as I push him over an edifice hurriedly.

Key Factors the Absence of Quick Transport Falls Short

As an instance, you might argue that The Beast’s free-running is fantastic, and I fully concur, but that doesn’t mean I wish to run, jump, and climb all the time. Certainly, Dying Light: The Beast offers cars that are available, however, transport, route access, and energy stocks are limited. And I accept that stumbling upon unseen places is what creates an open-world game interesting, yet when you’ve traversed an area repeatedly, there is not much remaining to find.

After my initial trip to the city’s historic district, I felt that this game was purposely lengthening my transit period by dispersing objective locations within the same quests.

When one of the side quests guided me to a hazardous location within the old district, I opened my map, searched for the closest vehicle, discovered it, drove toward the historic section, ran out of fuel, opened my map again, ran the rest of the way, and, in the end, experienced an enjoyable moment with the undead in the hazardous area — merely to realize that the subsequent mission goal sent me back to where I began, over there of the map.

The Argument for Quick Transport

I have to admit that this game lacks the most expansive landscape ever featured in an open-world game, yet that is a stronger argument to argue in favor of instant movement; if not having it bothers me on a smaller map, it would surely annoy me on a bigger one.

Of course, it would help to organize task targets in a specific sequence, but are we really talking about “encouraging exploration” when I feel forced to minimize my transit? It seems more that I would be “reducing hassle” to the greatest extent. Moreover, if I feel invested in a storyline and want to know the subsequent events (which is a good thing, designers!), I cannot wish to accomplish additional mission goals beforehand.

Workable Alternatives regarding Quick Transport

There is just one argument I can imagine advocating for preventing fast travel: You miss out on an easy exit route. And I must confess, I do not desire to forgo the small heart attack I feel each time darkness comes – but undoubtedly there are workarounds for this. As an instance, instant movement from unsafe zones might be banned, or fast travel points could be placed outside safe zones, obliging you to take a brief sprint through the darkness before getting to a safe place. Maybe even more effectively, Dying Light: The Beast could enable instant movement among quick transport spots only, thus you reduce transit period without the option of instant teleportation.

• Instant movement could be restricted to car locations, as an example,
• require virtual currency,
• or be interrupted by random encounters (the possibility to get assaulted by sudden monsters).

Naturally, it is only logical to enable new instant movement locations after discovering their vicinity.

The Best Reason in favor of Quick Transport

Perhaps the strongest argument advocating for fast travel, however, is choice: Even with a fast travel system in place, users who choose to move only on foot and by car would still have that possibility, however, gamers with limited time to enjoy, or with less desire for vehicles and free-running, could allocate that time on other in-game activities. That, from my perspective, is the real sense of independence one should expect in a sandbox title.