It was only a matter of time before some brave soul tried to make it through the terrifying zombie survival game Dying Light using only protagonist Kyle Crane's hands and feet. Hats off to YouTuber BOYvsVIDEOGAME for providing extensive documentation showing just how it's done.
In the "No weapons, fists & kicks only playthrough" that was completed just this morning, the player walks (and often runs) us through the game's entire single-player campaign without ever picking up one of Dying Light's many colorful melee weapons. Or any weapons, really. No flaming hammers. No electrified baseball bats. No makeshift grenades or stray assault rifles. Just punches. Lots and lots and lots of punches. Oh, and kicks too!
Dying Light is unique in comparison to many other first-person games because it emphasizes platformer-style parkour mechanics as a core pillar of its gameplay, so a no-weapons run isn't as crazily counter-intuitive a self-imposed handicap as, say, beating Destiny's toughest raid without guns. Rather than a superhuman feat, then, what I like about this Dying Light run is that it shows how the game plays out when pushed past its natural limits. It's not breaking the game as much as it is exaggerating it, if that makes sense. Parkour and environmental problem-solving were two of my favorite parts of Dying Light, after all. So what if you tried to play the game using only those tools?
Watching BOYvsVIDEOGAME's playthrough, one thing becomes crystal clear. You'd have many, many moments like this:
And this:
And, of course, passing scenes of slapstick comedy whenever zombies show just how stupid they really are:
It's particularly impressive to see how he takes out boss-level zombies like this goon above with a combination of persistence and grace. And a lot of swearing, of course:
Human enemies seem particularly tough, which would make sense. They're a lot more agile and responsive to Crane's moves than most of the zombie foes. Dodging their attacks is all the more important when you only have your fists to follow up with:
Sadly, even the challenge run isn't enough to save Crane from Dying Light's unfortunate final mission. (DO NOT WATCH THE NEXT VIDEO IF YOU DON'T LIKE SPOILERS)
You can watch the entire "no weapons" run here. Personally, I think I'm gonna take this idea for my next playthrough. It seems like the kind of thing that'd be more interesting to play than just sit back and watch.
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.