I’ve spent some time with Sony’s new PlayStation 4 exclusive Days Gone recently, playing it a few hours at a time over the past week and a half. I’m not done with the game yet but I have a pretty good idea of what it has to offer.
It’s . . . fine, I guess?
Not something I’d urge you to go pick up on day one, but a pretty good time-suck regardless. I like it, I just don’t love it. I don’t hate it, either. It’s just perfectly okay. Put that in the sizzle reel: “Perfectly okay.” ~ Forbes Games
Days Gone is an open-world zombie game that reminds me very much of really any Ubisoft Open World Game(™), but with a gritty edge reminiscent of The Last Of Us or early seasons of The Walking Dead. Sony likes gritty exclusives, after all, so take that and mix in Ubisoft’s open-world formula and voila presto! you have Days Gone.
The game ticks all the open-world boxes, for better or worse.
It includes:
- Crafting stuff—lots of crafting stuff, from bandages to crossbow bolts and much more.
- Stuff to craft with like ‘rags’ and ‘scrap’ and ‘ bottles’.
- A gradually revealed map, though thankfully no tower-climbing.
- Guns, though you can only carry three at a time: A pistol, an assault rifle or shotgun, and a special weapon like a crossbow or sniper rifle.
- Melee weapons that break but can be repaired.
- Hunting!
- A grizzly generic dude as the protagonist.
- Fast travel, though it’s kind of clever since it requires you to have the right amount of gas for your motorcycle.
- Motorcycle customizations (both functional and aesthetic).
- Lots of side missions!
- Press the right thumbstick to highlight tracks, items, etc. so you can hunt, scavenge etc. like every other damn game.
The point is, Days Gone is a strangely addictive, decently fun open-world game that’s just incredibly generic in every way except for the cool zombie hordes. It’s like Red Dead Redemption 2 but with a bike instead of a horse, a less compelling story and setting, and only a fraction of the emphasis on realism, though you’ll have to keep your bike’s tank full.
Days Gone is a rarity in that it’s a wholly new IP rather than a sequel or a reboot or a remake or a remaster, but it doesn’t do very much that’s actually new in any meaningful way. It can be perfectly fun at times. Sneaking around, taking out zombies or living enemies with stealth, then getting in a big fight where you brutally murder your foes with a hatchet after you run out of shotgun shells—resources are limited, but not that limited—can be a blast . . . for a while. Forced stealth missions where you have to follow Nero agents around and toss rocks to distract armed guards, not so much.
Combat and Gameplay
Combat is okay. The game could really benefit from a lock-on system, as aiming (especially up close) can be pretty wonky. This makes melee a much better way to take out all but the most distant enemies, and even then it can be a chore since good melee items break quickly. Having to fix up your hatchet or any other found melee weapons becomes tiresome quickly. The one melee weapon that doesn’t break is your knife, but it takes forever to kill something with it.
Only having three guns at a time is also a pain, as it would be nice to switch between an assault rifle and shotgun on the fly.
The tedium really starts to kick in after a while. There’s too much picking up of stuff. One must constantly pick up all the materials one needs to craft one’s healing items and Molotov Cocktails.
Then there’s all the ammo, the searching of corpses, the prying open of car trunks, the myriad side missions and plethora of busy work. You can’t hold very much of anything at a time, so you’ll use it up then have to search for more.
(Note: I really disliked the crafting stuff in The Last Of Us also.)
For open-world junkies, fine. This might all be delightful. But there’s very little that strikes me as particularly creative or fresh about Days Gone. Compare it to something like Dying Light, an imperfect yet refreshingly unique take on the zombie apocalypse that blended RPG elements with a fun parkour system and creative day/night cycle. Days Gone just doesn’t have that kind of twist.
And while the game is generally pretty intuitive as far as missions and menus go—it does a great job listing out “storylines” to follow, the map is nice and clear, and skill trees are super basic—sometimes it does a bad job at telegraphing exactly what you’re supposed to do next. Like many games, it often points you exactly where to go, and so you get very used to doing just that. Then suddenly part way through a mission, you’ll have no indication of what you’re supposed to do and so you have to muddle through.
There was one time when I was following a helicopter and your character says something like “hold up, they’re stopping” and so I stopped my bike and got ready for another stealth mission. But then nothing happened. I had to keep driving my bike close enough to trigger a cut-scene where I drive right under the helicopter and they shoot at me. Stuff like that, where you have agency one moment, but then have to follow the script, is really grating. (It’s still not as bad, in that regard, as Red Dead Redemption 2 at least). There are times when you wander just a tiny bit out of the mission zone only to have “LEAVING MISSION ZONE” flash at you on screen. One time I had to search a cemetery for something, and even while I was inside the cemetery still I kept getting that message.
Story and Graphics
You play as Deacon St. John, a biker surviving the apocalypse in the wilds of Oregon, chilling with his biker friend and running missions for different survivor camps and their quirky leaders. There are bandits everywhere—you will kill so many people, it’s a wonder there are any survivors left—a mysterious organization called Nero, and plenty of ‘freakers’ to keep you on your toes. The zombie stuff is pretty great at times, especially when you’re tackling the horrific freaker hordes. There are also “rippers”, a strange cult-like group of half-naked people with shaved heads who are unspeakably evil for some reason.
The story, however, leaves me a little cold. Deacon and his wife, Sarah, were separated at the outbreak of the apocalypse and now, years later, you think she’s dead. But is she? Flashbacks and cutscenes are abundant. The mystery is there for you to unravel. The shady Nero organization has its fingers in everything. One of the camp leaders, Copeland, will broadcast his anarcho-libertarian “Radio Free Oregon” show as you drive about the wilderness. It’s reminiscent of the Far Cry games in a lot of ways, but without the gonzo sense of humor.
Graphically, Days Gone is kind of like it is in every other way. It looks . . . fine. It’s very pretty at times, but there’s nothing that really stands out. Facial animations are decent. Nothing here is going to win awards or wow players, but none of it is particularly bad either. I like the Oregon setting, even if the game seems determined to not do very much with it.
Days Gone certainly has its charm. Despite numerous bugs, some weird audio stuff (why is Deacon talking so loud sometimes?) and the tedium, I’ve actually still had fun with the game. I’m certainly going to continue playing it. The voice-acting is pretty good and the story, however basic, has some interesting twists and turns and decent enough characters. It’s nothing special but it’s not terrible by any means. I enjoy riding a motorcycle around, though there’s nothing super fun or outlandish about Deacon’s bike. Like the game itself, it’s more of a workhorse than a plaything.
As far as open-world zombie games go, Days Gone is worth taking for a spin—just probably down the road, when it goes on sale. Or maybe it’s just the game for you, if what I’ve described fits the bill. Just keep your expectations in check.
