Reviewed for: Playstation 4
Days Gone is the rare game that I believe benefits from its state in the public eye prior to launch. Show me a person who was genuinely excited for it at any point leading up to its release, and I guarantee this same person will have walked out of Doctor Strange having enjoyed themselves. Despite something like an hour of gameplay shown off at an E3 a couple of years ago and the kinds of powerhouse marketing jobs that only Sony's money could pull off, nothing ever elevated Days Gone to the same level of hype that other PS4 exclusives (such as God of War or Spider-Man) achieved. I feel confident that everybody who has played this game thus far did so out of a sense of curiosity or obligation rather than genuine excitement. And you know what? Either Sony is more of a marketing genius that I thought, or it's mere coincidence that Days Gone actually turned out to be quite enjoyable as a result!
Welcome back to the broken leg review saga. That's right! The leg is still busted, so the saga continues! In the case of today's topic of discussion, I went into the experience expecting a serviceable survival gameplay experience coupled with your average "hey, in this world of zombies, what if humans are actually the real monsters?" zombie story. Nothing in the marketing materials or gameplay reveals gave me reason to expect anything else, and the firm 75-78 range review scores definitely contributed to my suspicions. In spite of what I've been hinting at here, Days Gone isn't a fantastic game, but if you'll bear with me for a while, I'll let you know in what ways the game isn't the bog standard zombie affair I believe we were all expecting.
Before I get started, however, there's something that needs to be touched on right off the bat. First impressions of Days Gone are not strong. For whatever reason, Developer Bend Studio decided to use the first couple of hours as a way of introducing the various types of open-world side missions you can take part in. The problem with this is, as I'll go on to describe, those side missions aren't interesting. A game should require a little * on the side to say "it gets good after a couple of hours," but it is worth noting that though the game starts off weak, it does get considerably better...after a couple hours of play. Right, let's get on with the meat, now!
In the world of Days Gone, it's been approximately 2 years since most of the world's population succumbed to a virus that turned them into man-eating monsters knowns as "freakers"...and no, I'm not making that name up...somebody in a board meeting actually brought that up as a possible name for this game's version of zombies and wasn't immediately fired. But I digress. The events of this game take place in the grand forests of Oregon, where bikers seem to be the only folks who survived the great freakening of two years prior. For the purposes of this review, we're going to pretend that a zombie-infested post-apocalypse where people survive by using vehicles that absolutely guzzle gas, make more noise than any other type of land vehicle, and provide no protection to the driver isn't the absolute dumbest concept ever conceived. For the purposes of this review, we're going to suspend our disbelief and just say "wooow, bikers vs zombies! coooool!" In any case, the particular biker we spend the game in the shoes of is Afghanistan veteran Deacon St. John. Having lost his wife in the great freakening, Deacon spends his days biking the forests of Oregon as a bitter bounty hunter with his biker buddy, Boozer, and that's about all I'm going to say about the story. Why? Because as much as I've been tongue-in-cheek-ly discussing aspects of the story, it's absolutely this game's biggest strength. Developer Bend Studio handles this plot in the same way that Rockstar Games handles their plots: it's a series of loosely-related missions that all sort of funnel into a central plot. I happen to be a big fan of this type of storytelling, so that's an automatic couple of points in my book. But in terms of the story itself, Days Gone actually avoids most of the zombie story tropes. It couldn't avoid all of them, but I was legitimately surprised by how often the game subverted my expectations in a positive way. Everything from the way that the game handles the freakers and the lore behind them to the way it handles certain inevitable plot twists was surprisingly original. Now, don't get me wrong: This isn't a story that's going to move you to tears. However, it is a story that will keep you consistently hungry to know what happens next.
Before I move on, I'm afraid I have to subject you to something, dear reader. Some of the story's drama was ruined for me, so now I must do the same for you. Due to my current status as a cripple, I've had family down in my apartment off and on giving me a hand, and my father was down here when I was in the early chapters of Days Gone. There came a point where I was in a mission accompanied by Deacon's friend, Boozer. The two shared a bike for this mission, with Boozer sitting on the back. Now, I didn't think anything of this, but my father ended up pointing at the screen and saying, "holding onto the back of the bike so I'm not gay!" I looked up and sure enough, rather than having his arms around Deacon, Boozer had his hands on the backside of the bike as we drove and turned at breakneck speeds. From there on out, I noticed this detail every single time these two men shared a bike. I couldn't look at Boozer undergoing a serious character moment without imagining him being desperate to prove his heterosexuality. There. Now that's a thing you'll notice if you play this game.
In terms of gameplay, Days Gone borrows heavily from The Last of Us. You have a primary weapon (typically a rifle), a side weapon (typically a pistol), and a special weapon (a crossbow or machine gun) in addition to melee weapons that are found in the game world, and your combat strategies will differ depending on whether you're facing off against freaks or human enemies. But the game's primary nod to my 2013 GOTY is in its crafting system. As you explore the world and the various areas you'll engage in combat in, you'll come across crafting materials such as rags, kerosine, nails, and bottles. These materials can be used to craft everything from pipe bombs to molotovs to bandages, and just like in The Last of Us, the types of resources required for each craftable item overlap. Crafting, therefore, becomes something of a split-second decision: is it more important in the moment to have an explosive, or would it be better to have a healing item just in case? It doesn't quite hit the same sense of desperate decision-making as it does in The Last of Us, but it does get pretty far. There really isn't all that much left to talk about in terms of the combat side of gameplay except to say that there's some level of jank involved...but we'll get to that.
The other side of gameplay, as is true in all open world games, is exploration and the experience of getting around the map. A reviewer I sometimes watch brought up an excellent point in that Days Gone flips a relatively unknown gaming staple on its head. In most games in which transportation is a key part of getting around the map, players tend to treat the modes of transportation as completely disposable punching bags. The amount of cars I've wrecked in Grand Theft Auto V from recklessly driving to the next objective would run even the richest person into the red for sure. But in Days Gone, your motorcycle can't be treated like a motorcycle in GTAV, or else it's game over. Rather, in Days Gone, your mode of transportation is a crucial game mechanic that requires your constant attention. Opinions have been divided on the level of maintenance required, with some people praising the sense of bonding that comes with having to constantly refuel their bike, while others liken the experience to the overly-realistic blunderings of Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm personally more in the camp of the former. The bike requires re-fueling and maintenance at pretty regular intervals, but not so often as to become a total chore. Gas and scrap for repairs are provided liberally, so it isn't like basic maintenance requires much searching or labor. It wasn't a task I was ever jumping up and down to do, but to me it provided just the right level of realism to be endearing. As for the world in which you drive your bike through, I'll say this: it's pretty standard, but inoffensive. It's quite large and the woods of Oregon are a compelling enough setting, but there isn't much incentive to go out and explore every nook and cranny. This is primarily because all the side content is stuff we've seen time and time again in open world games: there are bandit hideouts, collectibles, fast travel points to unlock, etc., and they're all fairly well-done, but they aren't interesting enough on their own to make one truly feel compelled to go out and find everything. Even when the much-lauded hordes start showing up on the map, it's too little too late at that point.
Having now mentioned the hordes, it only makes sense that I'd now segway into them! Essentially, scattered around the map are gigantic groups of 50+ (I believe) freakers. You encounter a few of these "hordes" as part of the story, but outside the story there are several optional ones to deal with. Optional or not, I have to say that taking out these hordes is the greatest gameplay experience in Days Gone. It can be a little frustrating, sure, but the thrill of actually succeeding far exceeds the potential frustrations leading up to it.
[Thanks to TheGG.net for the picture of this bug]
So the story is great and the gameplay is unoriginal but entertaining! Excellent, so how's the game from a technical perspective!
...not good. If it weren't for Anthem, I'd say that Days Gone is absolutely the weakest technical game of 2019. Where to even begin? Sound effects from bike feedback to gunshots will up and disappear for entire sessions until you restart the game. Textures will take upwards of half a minute to load during cutscenes. The framerate will begin to dip under even the slightest pressure (though paradoxically, it doesn't suffer too much during horde battles), meaning that every bit of bike travel you do will be marred with low framerate. The game will randomly seem to freeze for a couple of seconds before resuming. NPCs will suddenly disappear from one spot and reappear in another because the animation to get them to that spot failed to load. And beyond these game-affecting issues, there's also plenty of technical issues that amount to pure jank. For instance, there are times when audio logs and/or radio broadcasts will play over dialogue if the dialogue is triggered in the middle of the aformentioned log/broadcast. Toward the beginning of the game, there are a number of tutorial or success messages that pop up in the middle of a spoken word. So, for example, in the middle of Deacon saying the word "nice," the message would pop up at the "ni" sound, cutting off the word until you press "x," then the "ce" sound would follow after the message went away. Earlier I mentioned there was technical jank within gameplay, and that comes in the form of initially floaty gun aiming. At the start of the game, gun aiming is incredibly imprecise and it takes a lot of work to get the reticle to align where you want it to. This is fixed with a perk acquired at some point later on in the game, but it should've just been implemented from the get-go.
But it isn't all doom and gloom in the technical department. This is, after all, a game with Sony's money behind it, so there had to be a lot of money put in somewhere, right? Well, yes. It would've been great for more of the cash to go to QA, but it's clear that the money instead went to the graphics and animations. Holy cow. This is simply one of the best-looking games on consoles to date. Everything from the environments to the character models is crisp, stunning, and immensely detailed. The same goes for the animations, which at times give Rockstar cutscenes a run for their money. Add a soundtrack that fits and hits the right notes (even without standing out much) and you've got a technical package that has at least some saving grace.
Folks, Days Gone is a rare treat in that it's objectively not a great game, but I do fully recommend it. Its gameplay doesn't innovate much, it's a technical mess, and it takes a few hours to even be remotely good! However, if you're willing to stick with it, you'll get to experience one of (if not) this year's best stories and a satisfying gameplay loop that will, at the very least, keep you entertained for a decent amount of time. At the very least, you'll get more play time out of it than you likely will with Rage 2!
Let us review:
Poor first impression - 1.0
Jankiness and other tech problems - 1.0
The final score for Days Gone is...
8.0/10 - Good
Decent work, Bend Studio, decent work!
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