DAYS GONE

The presentation you're reading is significant because Playstation Studios' second PC release is the first to be reviewed by the site. The beginning of Sony's first-party games' presence on our beloved platform took place with Horizon: Zero Dawn, an undoubtedly quality game that had several performance issues and bugs upon its initial release. Days Gone thankfully avoids similar issues and even goes a step further, with a plethora of settings, smooth performance even on mainstream hardware and only minor bugs, so we're happy to review it and judge it purely based on what it offers as a game.

So, Days Gone belongs to the open world zombie action adventure genre and tells the tale of Deacon St. John, a former soldier and current biker, in the forested American state of Oregon some time after the zombie apocalypse. Deacon was forced to separate from his wife when she was rescued but he stayed behind to help his injured friend. Time passed and the wife was presumed dead because the settlement she was sent to by the rescuers was completely destroyed by the zombie horde, but a new clue gives our protagonist hope that maybe, just maybe, the love of his life might still be alive. Actually the zombies... they're not really zombies, they're called Freakers and they're more like brutal cannibals that have arisen from the spread of an unknown virus. The storyline is obviously not particularly innovative, however the story told through cutscenes and voice acting is well presented while the characters and the way the plot gradually unfolds are sufficient to keep the player's interest during gameplay.

The complaints I have from the narrative are relatively minor. The first few hours of the game may feel slow to many players because for quite some time there is no real progression in the main plot and the protagonist is consumed by missions that are more like sidequests, with only sporadic nuggets of meaningful progression. Personally this fact didn't bother me because the game world is beautiful, the atmosphere is solemnly bleak and I found a lot of entertainment and a sweet melancholy in wandering around the remnants of civilization with my bike and completing survival-like objectives, even if they rarely advanced the plot. Later on, the pace of events picks up, but be aware that you'll have to wait quite a while before you learn any substantial information about what happened to Deacon's wife. There is also an issue with the voice direction, in some conversations it seems that the actors did not get the same instructions during the recording phase, resulting in e.g. one interlocutor speaking in a hushed tone and the other screaming for no apparent reason. It's more funny than annoying but it has to be mentioned.

As for the gameplay, my colleague George Dempegiotis, who had the opportunity to play Days Gone during its initial release, described it in our conversation as a typical open world game and he is absolutely right. The game includes in general everything you would expect from an open world action game of our time: Wandering around an open map, story missions and side missions, random events, clearing enemy outposts, collecting resources for a bit of crafting, complementary elements of RPG and stealth, a degree of emergent gameplay. The good thing is that I think all the individual elements are executed to at least an adequate and often good level of quality. For example, the transition to the open map is quick and pleasant due to the existence of the motorcycle that accompanies us from the start of the game, whose handling is smooth and precise. There is the annoyance of searching for fuel, however with the minimum of care you won't run out since each outpost always has at least one can of gasoline and the map has several gas stations with pumps still in operation.

Continuing with the positives, both the combat system and the RPG elements (by upgrading the character's abilities and his bike) enhance the gameplay. The battles with all sorts of enemies move at a fast pace so they don't get tiring and, while I wouldn't describe the AI of the opponents as particularly developed, their abilities on Normal difficulty level are sufficient for a nice experience with the corresponding challenge. The game's strongest moments come through emergent gameplay, the instances when the game's systems interact with each other and create unpredictable situations. The most memorable such instance was when I engaged in combat with one of the game's factions by accident in a settlement, and the noise attracted a massive freaker horde that swept through everyone and then turned on me. I started running backwards so I could shoot and throw molotov cocktails while trying to get to my bike. I made it barely by the skin of my teeth, with zero ammo and minimal health. Equally entertaining was when I lured a zombie bear into the enemy base and it wiped everyone out as the enemies emptied all their ammo on it to no avail. These types of moments, combined with some interesting and well-written missions, are undoubtedly Days Gone's main strengths.

The thing is, to get to some of the negatives, none of the game's individual features offer anything above average, above what is expected for a modern quality title of this type. Obviously it's not realistic to expect every new game to revolutionize the genre, but the average quality of games is now such that achieving a very high score requires either flawless execution of familiar elements or the introduction of new ones. Days Gone does well in the execution of familiar elements but on the one hand it doesn't innovate, on the other it clings to some practices that now seem outdated. For example, there are frequent sequences in which you have to walk slowly following another character while doing nothing substantial except holding down "forward" on the keyboard or gamepad. Another element reminiscent of games from a previous decade, the frequent prompts to "boost" another character to climb up to a high point. Issues like the above, combined with some bugs that betray the lack of so-called polish (occasionally problematic pathfinding, momentary lack of response when you want to talk to a character or use a vendor) do not let the game claim a higher score.

But even so, Days Gone can easily be described as what our American colleagues call competent. A title that will justify its money honestly, will offer fun throughout the campaign and will only disappoint those who already feel saturated by the other open world games on the market and are looking for something fresh and unique. In my case, because I haven't played an open world game in a while, I didn't lose interest after 40+ hours of play and will continue to wander the world of Days Gone even after finishing this review, completing the remaining quests and casually riding my motorcycle through the woods. Ride or die.

Thanks to Playstation Greece for providing the review code.