Mechanics

Dying Light 2 keeps two kinds of score. Kills feed the Combat tree, rooftop running feeds the Parkour tree, and a third layer of systems, from the Inhibitors that stretch your stamina bar to the faction you hand a water tower to, decides how comfortable Villedor feels around Aiden. This guide walks those systems in roughly the order a new player meets them, using only what our own Dying Light 2 pages have tested. The resources they consume, Inhibitors, trophies and Military Tech among them, are covered in the items guide.

Two trees, 48 skills

Every skill belongs to one of two trees with 24 entries each. Combat Points come from killing infected and humans and are spent on the combat tree; Parkour XP comes from climbing, jumping and running and unlocks the parkour tree. Each skill needs the one before it on its branch (Air Kick is the first combat pick), and the parkour tree adds a second gate: many skills also demand a stamina total you can only reach by spending Inhibitors. Clearing the whole combat tree costs 24 Combat Points, and our writers note that more than half the campaign is gone before that happens, so the order matters.

The rest of the combat tree splits into aerial finishers (Air Kick, Ground Pound, Smash, Smash Jump, Vault Power Kick), crowd tools (Windmill, Block Charge, Grapple Throw, Head Stomp, Ledge Takedown), stealth kills (Stab, Stab Followup) and a ranged branch (Parkour Shot, Power Shot, Precise Aiming, Serial Shot). On the parkour side you are buying speed (Dart, Dash, After Boost, Sleek Runner, Crowd Runner, Bash, Stealth Movement), more jumps (High Jump, Double Jump, Ledge Jump, Rotate Jump, Landing Jump, Enemy Jump, Slide, Slide Jump) and wall movement (Tic Tac, Wall Run, Wall Run Jump, Wall Combo). Our tips page singles out Firm Grip and Wall Run as the two that make early rooftop routes stop feeling impossible.

Health, stamina and immunity

None of the three bars grows with level. The only way up is the Inhibitor: gather three and inject them for one upgrade to the stat of your choice, as explained on our health, stamina and immunity page. Most Inhibitors sit inside GRE containers in GRE facilities, and the hardest of those are guarded by an anomaly boss and a horde, so the page steers new players toward easier sources first: a few open-world spots (one chemical plant holds three), an early story mission that leads into a GRE facility, and Military Airdrops that only need agility. Those six early Inhibitors are two upgrades. Where each one is hidden, and how the GRE Detector maps them, is on our Inhibitor locations page. Put stamina first; outfits can top up the other stats, as covered below.

Leveling faster

Character level gates areas and missions, and our leveling page lists the activities that pay best. Anything done after dark carries a night bonus, at the cost of facing much nastier infected.

Keeping weapons alive

There is no repair kit in Dying Light 2. A weapon's durability only comes back when you fit a mod, and each mod restores 50 points per slot, so a weapon with no free slot will eventually break no matter what you do. That is the heart of our weapon repair guide, which also tempers the Reinforcement grip's promise of 100 percent less durability loss: it slows the decay, it does not stop it. Mods are fitted from the inventory (the C key on PC opens the modification menu) and crafted from the weapon menu using scrap and rags pulled off corpses and out of abandoned buildings, with the rarer materials found in Dark Zones at night or bought from a Craftmaster, who will also upgrade recipes for Infected Trophies at a rising price.

The timing advice is the useful part. Swing a new weapon unmodded first and fit the first mod after it has lost around 50 to 100 durability. Do not sink mods into early weapons at all, because weapon quality rises with your level and you will replace them; our tips page treats repair as a stopgap and simply swaps weapons when one breaks. Match gear to the weapon too: Tank clothing for two-handers, Brawler for one-handers.

Lockpicking

Chests, cars, vans and lockers hide the loot you will not find lying around, and picks are almost never found, so you craft them. Hakon teaches the recipe during Markers of Plague: three lockpicks cost 5 scrap plus some cloth rags. The minigame turns the lock with one hand and works the screwdriver with the other; hold the A button, feel for the sweet spot where the lock starts to rotate, and ease off the moment the controller vibrates, because forcing it snaps the pick. Upgrading the lockpick blueprint at a Craftmaster, paid for with Infected Trophies, makes picks more durable, crafts more per batch and eventually lets you force locks open and skip the minigame entirely. Full controls are on our lockpicking page.

Outfits and stats

Clothing is Aiden's only visual customisation, but it is also a stat system: every piece carries a bonus, and the 500 outfits in the game are spread over six slots, so shoes, tops, pants and the rest combine freely. Open the inventory (the touchpad on PlayStation, the menu button on Xbox), pick a slot and confirm the piece. Outfits drop from containers, with the tougher GRE Anomaly zones giving high-level pieces, and merchants sell them for cash; pre-order skins wait in Aiden's Stash at any safe house. Our outfits page has the walkthrough, and our tips page adds that Medic or Radar gear extends Survivor Sense.

Making money

Old World Money keeps your gear current, and our money farming page ranks the honest methods first: loot every uncommon infected, bandit and human corpse (the shop offers an automatic sell-all-valuables option), sell weapons and clothing you have outgrown, raid Dark Zones at night for high-value loot and Crystal Cores, bring lockpicks to Military Convoys, and take side quests and the blue Encounter markers, which pay small sums quickly. The page also documents the item duplication glitch: in a same-console co-op session, back up your save (PS Plus cloud or a USB drive), hand your Artifact-tier items with the yellow background to your partner, restore the backup, rejoin and repeat until they hold a stack, then take it all back and sell.

Facilities and factions

Windmills, water towers, electrical stations and metro stations are the city's facilities. Each is a challenge, and clearing it activates the structure, turns it into a safe house and lets you hand the surrounding zone to a faction.

Assignment works by zone, not by building. Give a facility to the Peacekeepers and their traps appear across the area, letting you bait groups from range; give it to the Survivors and you get parkour aids such as ziplines and airbags. Until you choose, unlocking any other structure in the zone only produces a prompt telling you to assign the zone's facility first. The choice changes which NPCs and side quests appear locally but, as our faction assignment guide stresses, it does not alter the story's outcome. That guide also suggests a home for each facility.

Bandit camps

Four fortified camps show as vertical flags on the map. Each is taken the same way: kill the two lieutenants, kill the gang leader behind his cronies, then interact with the flag. Loot the whole site before that last step, because everything left lying around vanishes when the camp flips. Claiming all four unlocks the Ban Hammer achievement, and each camp then serves as a shelter after dark. Our bandit camps page covers the approach to each.

Fast travel

There is no fast travel in Old Villedor. It unlocks when the story reaches the Central Loop, where solving an Electrical Substation puzzle powers the nearby area and turns any Metro Station you have discovered into a travel point. The Main Terminal Settlement and the PK Floating Fortress are destinations too; Nightrunner camps are not. Open the map, pick an unlocked station and hold the prompted key. Details are on our fast travel page.

Co-op

Up to three friends can join your Villedor once you have finished the prologue, which takes one to two hours. Invites go through the Pause Menu's Online Menu, and Steam players can sign in with Epic Games there to invite Epic friends; at launch there was no cross-play between platforms. Story decisions in a session are put to a vote and the majority wins, and everything you collect, along with those choices, carries back into your single-player save. Our co-op page has the steps, and our PC fixes page covers sessions that refuse to connect.

Frequently asked questions

Can I unlock every skill?

Every combat skill costs one of 24 Combat Points, and parkour skills additionally need stamina thresholds up to 140 for the picks above. Our combat skills page expects the full tree to take most of the campaign, which is why it recommends the six early picks in the table.

Does giving facilities to one faction change the ending?

No. Zone assignment swaps the local NPCs, quests and structures (traps for Peacekeepers, parkour aids for Survivors) and nothing else in the plot.

What is the quickest money?

The co-op duplication glitch, if you have a partner on the same console. Without one, sell everything you loot from uncommon infected and bandits and hunt Crystal Cores in Dark Zones at night.

How do I stop my favourite weapon breaking?

You cannot, only delay it. Fit a mod for 50 durability per free slot once it has lost 50 to 100 points, and consider a Reinforcement grip to slow the loss.