As per the norm with gaming generations, the final years are usually reserved for some of the best offerings a console can produce as developers completely understand & harness the tools available to them. For Playstation 4 owners, games like “God of War”, “Spider-Man”, “Horizon: Zero Dawn” have definitely provided greatness people were expecting from Sony’s first-party studios. This generation has also allowed studios known for one genre to branch out including SIE Bend Studio – a developer more known for PSP “Uncharted” spin-offs instead of grandiose open-world games that have polluted the market as of late. With the Sony marketing machine behind it, “Days Gone” seemingly had the tools to be a great experience even if the subject matter has been done to death.
Did I Complete “Days Gone”?
As the motorcycle-drifting, loyal friend-having, constantly muttering widower Deacon St. John, players have the chance to experience what’s left of Oregon after an unknown disease has caused people to transform into cannibalistic monsters known as “Freakers”. These mutated creatures love to sprint in the direction of potential food be it raiders, deer, other diseased mammals like wolves or Deacon himself. The open world provides Deacon more than enough to do including stereotypical fetch quests associated with the genre, stuff to collect including pamphlets & historical markers, and taking on hordes of the mindless, weathered killers ranging from the aforementioned Freakers to rampaging bears or fanatical zealots. Completing “Days Gone” 100 percent is a daunting task thanks to the amount of collectibles, hordes and missions, but the Platinum trophy actually is easier with the player only needing to eradicate one horde (though the game’s story makes the player destroy more than one), achieve seventy-five percent collectible completion, and perform various activities with Deacon’s bike including drifting for ten cumulative minutes. After sixty-plus hours I finished spinning my motorcycle’s wheels, attained a bunch of collectibles, took on many hordes, and earned the Platinum trophy.
Did “Days Gone” Live Up to the Hype?
“Days Gone” proves to be an interesting, yet all-too-familiar beast. From a narrative & mission presentation perspective, “Days Gone” comes across as stereotypical at best and mundane at worst with frustration mixed in thanks to some forced stealth missions that will most likely result in multiple checkpoint restarts. Going through this piece of Oregon, Deacon will have to overtake enemy outposts to create checkpoints, clear out infested areas to make fast travel viable across certain points on the map, and even use Deacon’s incredible senses to track captured civilians held by religious nutjobs prone to cutting the word “RIP” into their bodies. Spread way too thin & long, the story is actually presented pretty uniquely at first in non-chronological order before things start ramping up while new characters are introduced alongside the bottom half of the map opening up to players who are barred from entering until a designated time.
Unfortunately from a character aspect, a majority of the people players will encounter have the most cookie-cutter personalities with little to no expansion beyond what exists in Deacon’s world. Visually interesting characters like Deacon’s best friend Boozer have their pasts quickly glossed over with exposition and even some characters players should become emotionally attached to get less than pleasing treatment in regards to their character arcs like a young, traumatized girl who Deacon has to save more than once. Deacon and his wife Sarah’s love story lacks that special intangible to explain what made them fall in love, let alone why Deacon would sacrifice so much of his lifestyle pre-apocalypse for her. Though initially promised, “Days Gone” lacks a major choice system that affects the story. Instead, the player will choose upon saving captured or endangered strangers that randomly appear on the map at any time that will influence the growing trust level associated with each camp Deacon works with as the story progresses.
Gaining trust – which is also attained by completing almost everything from story missions to horde clearing in the camp’s general area – with these camps is very important as each living quarters specializes in a certain benefit that will help Deacon in the world such as Copeland’s camp being great for early motorcycle upgrades while Wizard Island in the southern portion has the best guns. Each camp has up to three trust levels that will take a lot of work including turning in collected Freaker skins & ears as “Bounties”.
The gameplay itself is rudimentary, but highly adaptable with the player easily falling into a groove of melee attacks, sneaking around through tall grass to slip behind an enemy distracted by the rock Deacon threw seconds earlier, and shooting a variety of guns & even a crossbow that can set enemies on fire or even turn them against their own allies. “Days Gone” sprinkles out enemy types at a relatively slow pace with the initial action seeing Deacon shoot & chop his way through regular Freakers or aggressive, yet mostly intelligent human enemies before coming face to paws with ferocious bears and highly mutated Freakers like the powerful “Breakers” that can take copious amount of damage before falling over. Attaining weaponry is rather interesting in “Days Gone”. While Deacon can purchase weapons from camps, he can also pick up any weapon dropped by downed human enemies. But every weapon picked up won’t be added to the gun locker in any rest stop in the game. Some weapons are given as rewards for completing certain mission strings or taking out hordes.
One of the most important gameplay mechanics in the game is Deacon’s motorcycle. Beyond being a way to simply move around the map, Deacon’s vehicle of choice is treated as the fragile piece of equipment it is – needing maintenance once it takes enough big hits and gas to keep it moving. Gas canisters are littered around the world featuring a bottomless amount inside each one; making it a lot easier to keep from being stranded in the middle of the night when the Freakers roam in greater numbers and are at their most violent. Rather than buying a bunch of guns and healing items, specializing Deacon’s motorcycle by purchasing a bigger gas tank or a stronger frame becomes the most important benefit in traversing the hilly environments (areas made even more profound by a phenomenal dynamic weather system that actually affects the terrain and how well the motorcycle gains or loses traction) especially before multiple fast travel options are available. There are multiple items that can be crafted such as motolovs and remote bombs even in the heat of battle thanks to a weapon wheel that can be pulled up while slowing down time; though moving around the wheel with the right analog stick can be frustrating thanks to the item initially selected refusing to change.
The game’s skill tree is varied with forty-five options spread across three differing branches – “Melee”, “Ranged” & “Survivalist” with each focusing on hand/weapon-to-hand/weapon combat, shooting, and scavenging & physical buffs respectively. To gain skill points the player will have to partake in a lot of things including landing headshots or simply completing missions to gain experience points that, once Deacon gains enough to reach 100 percent, are converted into a skill point. The skills themselves are incredibly useful especially Deacon’s “Focus” ability that allows the player to slow down time and land that perfect gunshot on a sprinting enemy. Some skills can be coupled together to make Deacon a true force to be reckoned with even against what seems like an insurmountable horde. Deacon’s health, stamina & Focus can be upgraded by clearing destroyed or evacuated checkpoints created by the game’s equivalent of FEMA.
Beyond the repetitive nature of missions, story & character development that leaves something to be desired, and the figurative open-world video game checklist being utilized to the fullest, there’s nothing more damaging to the game’s quality than its technical performance. The graphics are mostly phenomenal, though certain NPC models and random hillside houses suffer from bland craftsmanship; but the looks definitely comes at a price. On a base PS4, players will encounter frame rate drops aplenty with the game going as far as to freeze for a second or two at any given moment. The act of taking on a horde will definitely put the game’s frame rate to the test. Moving south of the map caused the game to completely crash more frequently. There are glitches both minor and major such as slow loading objects like NPCs or restarting a mission checkpoint completely breaking the mission such as one where the enemies & the person needed to be saved disappeared upon failing the mission & immediately retrying (needing a full game reboot for everything to come back). There are also fundamental gameplay flaws including enemy AI having varying vision & situational awareness ranges that fluctuates whenever the game feels like it. And then there will be moments when something like throwing a rock for a distraction won’t work because the highlighted enemy decides to run off in a different direction or isn’t selected properly by the auto-aim. Some controller issues exist as well with the necessity of holding down the square button to loot or pick up anything often times resulting in Deacon picking up a fallen weapon rather than looting a nearby enemy. Then there’s the DualShock 4’s touchpad that can open up the map, inventory & the like by the player swiping on it in a specific direction. Unfortunately it’s pretty easy to accidentally touch the pad when using the face buttons or R1 to roll, inadvertently bringing up a screen in the heat of battle that can prove frustrating. Even after several patches, “Days Gone” can prove to be a glitchy mess.
“Days Gone” is definitely a jack of all trades type of open-world experience, but isn’t a master of any one meaningful section; especially compared to so many other open-world games available.
Should You Play “Days Gone”?
“Days Gone” is in no way as bad a game many would make it out to be; but that doesn’t make it any less uninspired on several aspects. A majority of the gameplay features including the combat, shooting & mission structure is stereotypical in regards to the genre. The story is good, but could’ve been more memorable if some the time used to simply create another mundane fetch quest scenario expanded upon the relationships before society’s collapse in the same manner as Deacon & Sarah’s budding love as alluded to during conversations between Deacon and Boozer or members of certain camps. Thrilling moments like taking on a massive horde or using specialized crossbow arrows to turn an enemy camp on its head lose their luster after a while; leaving a solid, open-world experience that doesn’t overcome its technical issues or its competition from a presentation standpoint. For those tired of open-world games this won’t change anyone’s opinion on the matter, but fans of the genre will get everything they want and a little bit more here including sexual innuendos at the most inappropriate time.
