City alignment is a fun feature introduced in Dying Light 2. It gives you more decisions or paths that can slightly affect the story and how you play it because you are choosing between two factions to help.
By helping other factions, you are aligning yourself with a specific city or faction, and they will give you perks that can help you get around the city or help you deal with the infected in return.
This guide will show you how city alignment works in Dying Light 2, including all the upgrades from each faction and what are the best upgrades to get.
What Are City Alignments?
City alignments are your progress towards helping cities by giving them access to basic necessities to survive. In return, you gain perks for combat-related and parkour-related activities depending on which city you have aligned with.
While playing through the main storyline, you will clear areas like the water tower or even turn on the downtown electrical station to activate the power to a territory, which are both key necessities for survival. Once you clear these areas, you have the choice of giving it to either the Peacekeepers or the Survivors.
City alignments can be treated as faction reputation, so it is easier to understand. You can choose from either the Survivors or the Peacekeepers to give the territory to.
Each faction offers different perks, and you will have to choose how many you want territories you want to allocate to each faction to get the perk you are looking for. There aren’t enough territories to maximize all the upgrades, so you have to be decisive when you choose city alignments.
City Alignment Upgrades
Peacekeepers
Car Traps
Cars around Old Villedor get an explosive trap installed by the Peacekeepers. When activated, Car Traps lure the infected and then explode, eliminating a huge group all at once. You can use this to clear the infected chasing you or to clear a path to a destination. It is a good perk to have during the night when there are Howlers lurking on every corner.
PK Razor Cannon
Fast shooting Razor Cannons are great at decimating packs of incoming Virals. Since the Peacekeepers rely on protecting civilians through force, you can expect more of these kinds of perks. These are extremely fun to use.
Electrical Traps electrocute enemies caught inside the trap, blocking passage through the surrounding area. These traps give you more space to work with, especially when the infected are coming from multiple directions.
As you progress through the game, you will eventually unlock the Bow as a ranged weapon. However, the Crossbow Pack perk packs a bigger punch since it is semi-automatic and can be infused with Elemental Bolts.
It is a fun perk to have since you can save your weapon mods and use your resources to install weapon mods on your melee weapons.
Molotov Lanterns
When hit with a projectile, Molotov Lanterns will fall and set fire to a huge area around them. These are more useful when exploring around the Metro, but it is as useful as the Car Traps.
You have to keep an eye on these Molotov Lanterns and prepare your ranged weapon on your weapon swaps so you can swap to it faster.
Pendulum Traps
Colossal Pendulum traps can mow down whole groups of enemies beneath them. You can look at it as an upgraded version of the Molotov Lantern perk. With all of these perks combined, exploring the city, whether day or night, will become much easier and, more importantly, be more exciting.
UV Traps are very helpful during a chase, acting both as a trap for the infected and an additional source of UV Light. Exploring during the night can be annoying because you need to keep an eye on your infection levels.
With UV Traps installed, you can get a free infection cleansing and restart your timer. It will help you save a ton of resources. Apart from reducing your infection level, it is also great at dealing with enemies during a chase.
Survivors
Ziplines
Ziplines speed up traversal significantly, creating additional routes through a Zone. It makes it a lot easier for Aiden to cross buildings in any zone. In the Trinity district, you can easily parkour through rooftops, but in the Metro, these Ziplines will provide amazing utility, especially when paired with your Paraglider.
Airbags
Jump over high walls instantly using Airbags installed in Survivor Zones. A lifesaver for chases because getting to the high ground is the best strategy to get away from the infected.
Landing Bags
Landing Bags cushion your fall, allowing you to reach the ground quickly and safely. I only found these Landing Bags useful to speed things up when I know where I am going. Parkouring around the city is fun, and this gives you an additional safety cushion to get to the ground quicker.
Survival Revival
When you fall in a Survivors Zone, a helping hand will revive you close to the point at which you fell. It kinds of put the previous Landing Bags perk unnecessary at this point. However, Survivor perks are all created to help you get around the city quicker and safer.
Air Vents
Improved Air Vents that increase your mobility with the Paraglider. If you had traversed the Metro when Air Vents were introduced, you know the pain of barely hanging on to your Paraglider because of your stamina. Without increasing your stamina, flying with your Paraglider is extremely hard.
You will find yourself getting lower and lower in altitude, desperate to find an Air Vent to keep you floating. Apart from the Ziplines, this is the best perk to get you around any area faster.
Upgraded Airbags
Upgraded Airbags that allow you to jump even higher than before. It will help you get up to higher buildings, and it perfectly compliments the upgraded Air Vents. The amount of verticality you will have at this point will get you to anywhere you want whenever these perks are available to you.
Two-Way Ziplines
An improved version of Ziplines that lets you travel upward. Two-Way Ziplines is the peak of all the Survivor perk upgrades. These Two-Way Ziplines will give you free passes to get from point A to B and vice versa.
Peacekeepers or Survivors?
Both factions focus on different aspects of supplementing your playthrough and making your life much easier in Old Villedor. The only similarity these perks share is how it focuses on helping you survive.
Peacekeepers go for the more brutal approach since you will rely on using their perks to clear the infected while the Survivors allow you to traverse the map quicker and escape the hands of the infected more easily.
In terms of overall survivability, Peacekeeper perks should provide you with more safety. However, using the Survivor perks is insanely fun, and it helps you avoid the infected anyway.
Picking between Peacekeepers or Survivors is purely based on preference on how you want to play the game. UV Traps from the Peacekeepers provides the best protection because it deals with the infected while keeping your infection rate down during the night.
Since UV Traps is the last upgrade, you will need to give seven territories to the Peacekeepers to get it. Because of this, I tried to focus more on the Survivor perks because I love to parkour around the city, and combat isn’t much of an issue for me.
You can mix it up by getting the Crossbow Pack upgrade from the Peacekeepers and focusing on the Survivor perks right after. You can traverse the rooftops much quicker, and you have a deadly crossbow to play around the rooftops with. It heavily depends on your playstyle.
