Introduction
Dive into a game that one reviewer on Gamespot hated because all the zombies were white! Days Gone is an open world zombie survival game that will test your abilities in surviving an apocalypse, handling an extremely uncooperative gun, and figuring out how well you would fare as the proud owner of a motorcycle! While this may sound like just another zombie game, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, because the developers, Bend Studio, have included some interesting new concepts into the world of zombies as well as a solid story and a (very long) gameplay. There is a lot to be said about this game, so without waiting around, let’s jump right in!
So, What’s All This About?
You get to take on a post-apocalyptic Oregon as a biker named Deacon St. John. An outlaw turned drifter. Now, there’s a lot going in the story where the main characters are Deacon’s wife who Deacon finds out could still be alive, and his best friend Boozer, a fellow biker. The world you are in is pretty messed up with a pandemic that killed half the population and turned most of the rest into violent, mindless creatures called “Freakers”. Of course, it makes sense that the pandemic would turn them violent so that you have plenty of people to kill, melee, and blow up. I mean, just imagine what would happen if the pandemic turned them into a bunch of peace-loving creatures who like to pluck flowers and make jelly!
Anyway, you get the gist of the game by what I just said. Zombies, guns, a hard-ass biker, lots of blood spurting everywhere. You can piece it all together, right?
Talking about the story itself, it’s immersive and the gameplay time is very long but fun. People have criticized the lack of character development and I must admit that the game having random flashbacks can get confusing. But overall, it isn’t bad.
Gameplay
A point that differentiates Days Gone from most other open-world survival games is that the gameplay time is very long. You get plenty of main and side missions, and it suffices to say that somehow the game never seems too boring. Yes, the side missions may feel repetitive sometimes, but they always require you to go to different parts of the massive open world which you may not have explored before, which makes it interesting. There are a lot of types of Freakers, and an equal lot of ways to kill them, so while the gameplay seems to drag out a bit, it manages to remain enjoyable. The next important part of the gameplay is Deacon’s bike. Since this bike is Deacon’s lifeline and is a center point of the game, Bend Studio seems to have put in a lot of work to make sure that the bike handling was as smooth as possible.
The bike itself comes up crappy at the start, but since this is a progression-based survival game, that is to be expected. Once you get yourself good components for a bike as well as some nitrous, it’s smooth riding from
What Are the Game Mechanics Like?
The game mechanics may be one of the more problematic areas of the game due to some things not working the way it should. Since this game has a stealth side to it, it is necessary to use silenced weapons to kill quietly. However, due to the aiming mechanics being imprecise, these weapons are rendered practically useless. There would be points where you must take on hundreds of enemies that take very little damage from your bullets. Combine that with terrible aiming and it’s a perfect recipe for disaster. However, the melee combat mechanics are just wonderful, and it is extremely satisfying to sink your many different weapons into a Freaker and see its intestines fly off!
Talking about weapons, you do have quite a range of them, but your primary weapons are the ones you must repair, upgrade, and rely on. And of course, having a bike means having to make sure that it’s fully serviced, has its tires checked, a full tank, and ready to roll at the first sign of a Freaker. While this does add a bit of realism to the game, having to stop every five minutes for gas gets old fast.
How Scary Are the Freakers?
Talking about scariness, you can’t expect yourself to be as freaked out as you would be with horror-focused games such as Outlast. Overall, zombies are zombies, and they do feel quite generic and boring. But there are two main points which make the zombies from Days Gone different.
The main one is the concept of a horde. This zombie hoard has very impressive underlying mechanics and is one of the most unique parts of the game. Imagine having a writhing mass of brain-dead cannibals after you, and you’ll understand why this is so horrifying.
It is recommended not to even engage these hordes until you progress far enough in the story to unlock weapons specifically meant for dealing with hordes since you most likely won’t make it if you were to be attacked by one. This is also where the stealth aspect of the game comes in to play, and you must carefully navigate your way around the
Another fact that there are so many different types of zombies, from huge muscled zombies that want to tear you apart to skinny zombies that want to eat you piece by piece, to men and women and even children! Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to, well, kill children in videogames. I still get the creeps thinking about those babies that blew up if you went too close in Dead Space 2. But that’s kinda the point. This is a horror game.
A Bit About The Open World
The world in Days Gone is massive and fun to explore, with things like having a horde of zombies jump at you while you’re refilling your tank being commonplace. However, players have pointed out that there aren’t many Easter eggs or anything too particularly revealing that gives the open world a zing of adventure. It should be noted that this is Bend Studio’s first open-world game, so you can’t expect it to be as good as an open-world game from Rockstar.
Game Sounds
Out of all the game sounds, the soundtrack is probably the best part. But yes, all the expected quality of a 2019 game can be found in the game, such as the general noise of the environment changes depending on where you are, the weather, and whether there are zombies after you.
Graphics, Lags, Bugs
I think this is the best point to tell you about the game’s bugs. Yeah, yeah, I know. Bugs have been the bane of videogames, especially through the past couple of years, and Days Gone has a fair share of them.
People have mentioned that the game lags a bit, especially if you are on a standard PS4 instead of a PS4 Pro, but it’s fine since even when the game lags, the graphics are just on point.
When the director of this game so that he would be pushing the PlayStation to its limits, he was not joking, with some extremely realistic graphics taking centerstage here. Gamers have also reported the game entirely crashing while others have reported none of it. The game itself is being patched and many are recommending that you wait until it is fully patched before buying.
Conclusion
All in all, the game is fun to play and for an open-world survival horror game, this is a solid score. The story is long but immersive, the gameplay has some new elements to it, and the melee combat is just so much fun. While we certainly expect more from Bend Studio in the future, this is not a bad starting point, so let’s see what comes next!
