This review contains spoilers
Note: Played on Playstation 5.
When Days Gone was first announced I sighed with genuine tiredness. A zombie game? Open world? About a biker gang guy? Can we just not? Can we choose to not do this?
I don't love zombie games.
But what an absolute fool I was. I finally started playing this at the request of one of my brothers, who had ignored it at launch like I had. But he told me that it was genuinely one of the most enjoyable PS4 titles he'd ever played.
I wasn't sure at first but I got completely sucked into the world of the game, and the characters, oh the characters. The protagonist Deacon and co-Biker friend Boozer have a deeply loving friendship that is at first hidden behind the macho, slightly toxic masculinity that I was worried the game would be primarily about. But the layers of the friendship onion peel away across the course of the story, and it's genuinely beautiful in the end. There's a moment at the very end where they hug each other and it honest-to-god made me tear up a bit.
The game itself is also very enjoyable, with great mechanics driving the behaviour of the games zombies, oh sorry, "Freakers". The day/night cycle and the weather fluctuations all have a part to play, and as you learn these mechanics you can start using them to your advantage. It's bloody well done.
The quiet world-building at play is also wonderful. The game has a currency system where you can buy ammunition and other supplies from outposts. In other games this might be bottle-caps, or dollars, or some other form of apocalypse-bucks. Days Gone flavours this as "camp credits". Not a physical currency, but a meta-money increased by favours. Helping a camp out earns you credit to trade for the things you need. Completing quests for a camp, bringing them meat or plants, or freaker ears as bounty are all ways to gain favour for a camp and in turn a way to pay for the supplies that you need. These camp credits are localised to each camp, so you support the camps you need in order to buy the things you want. It's a really great system.
I don't have much more to say. If you're even mildly intrigued, give it a go. And if you're a Playstation Plus user who owns a PS5, you're doing yourself a disservice by not downloading it via the PS Plus collection.
Try it out!
When Days Gone was first announced I sighed with genuine tiredness. A zombie game? Open world? About a biker gang guy? Can we just not? Can we choose to not do this?
I don't love zombie games.
But what an absolute fool I was. I finally started playing this at the request of one of my brothers, who had ignored it at launch like I had. But he told me that it was genuinely one of the most enjoyable PS4 titles he'd ever played.
I wasn't sure at first but I got completely sucked into the world of the game, and the characters, oh the characters. The protagonist Deacon and co-Biker friend Boozer have a deeply loving friendship that is at first hidden behind the macho, slightly toxic masculinity that I was worried the game would be primarily about. But the layers of the friendship onion peel away across the course of the story, and it's genuinely beautiful in the end. There's a moment at the very end where they hug each other and it honest-to-god made me tear up a bit.
The game itself is also very enjoyable, with great mechanics driving the behaviour of the games zombies, oh sorry, "Freakers". The day/night cycle and the weather fluctuations all have a part to play, and as you learn these mechanics you can start using them to your advantage. It's bloody well done.
The quiet world-building at play is also wonderful. The game has a currency system where you can buy ammunition and other supplies from outposts. In other games this might be bottle-caps, or dollars, or some other form of apocalypse-bucks. Days Gone flavours this as "camp credits". Not a physical currency, but a meta-money increased by favours. Helping a camp out earns you credit to trade for the things you need. Completing quests for a camp, bringing them meat or plants, or freaker ears as bounty are all ways to gain favour for a camp and in turn a way to pay for the supplies that you need. These camp credits are localised to each camp, so you support the camps you need in order to buy the things you want. It's a really great system.
I don't have much more to say. If you're even mildly intrigued, give it a go. And if you're a Playstation Plus user who owns a PS5, you're doing yourself a disservice by not downloading it via the PS Plus collection.
Try it out!