“Just A Mediocre Biker Zombie Drama”

You might be wondering if the title of this review is sarcasm. It’s not. “Days Gone” manages to take a relatively interesting mashup of settings and make it a dull, repetitive, uninspired mess. Its visuals and sound design are no doubt impressive, and it has some serviceable gunplay to boot, but it comes up way too short with its story, characters, open world, mission structure, and gameplay loop. What could have been a neat new IP for Sony ended up in a canceled franchise, and while some may consider the foundation to be promising for a sequel, I can see why Sony currently sees little in the IP’s future value.

The game looks great, as most Sony first-party games tend to look. The audio design is also really well done in general, which is pretty nice since not all of Sony’s first-party games contain good sound. The UI is clean, the menus are crisp, and everything handles well enough - no clunky UI to be found. Everything about this games’ presentation is great - unfortunately, it is by far its greatest strength. When it comes down to gameplay, that’s when things become much more of a mixed bag…

Mechanically, the game is fine with its core actions. The shooting is solid and has a nice chunkiness behind it (the nice audio design helps to do wonders for shots having that “impact” feeling). Driving around in the motorcycle feels good, and I enjoyed the weighty nature of it. Crafting is pretty simple and doesn't require too much thought. Healing is similar though it can be performed without breaking away from the in-game action. These things are very nice, but the problems with “Days Gone” start to arise with the mission structure and world design in which you carry out these game mechanics. Let’s just say that it’s to the point of “ad nauseam”...

The story mission design of “Days Gone” is disappointing. A lot of them involve just talking to a character or NPC and killing a few enemies/zombies in an encampment. Occasionally there will be a minor set piece like blowing up a dam or fighting some people while riding your motorcycle, but the player’s involvement is stripped back immensely (cannot get off of your bike, can only provide sniper cover while someone else plants explosives). Additionally, most missions fail to deviate from the “kill X amount of enemies and talk to NPC” trope, which makes them feel really, really repetitive. These are MAIN STORY missions, meaning there’s even more garbage that's a part of this game’s awful open-world side content and mission structure.

The side missions are generally repetitive and don’t give real weight to the world. They are mostly mundane quests involving rescuing kidnapped camp members, hunting down dangerous murderers, or finding some equipment to help solve a camp problem. They’re delivered via radio calls, but you still have to go to specific camps to gain more information about them. Why can’t the camp members just tell you on the radio?! You end up spending gas (and time) accepting the missions, only for them to be the same repetitive slogs as before. The open-world content isn’t much better. You “liberate” a few different camps like in various Ubisoft open-world games, and then can restock ammo there while uncovering new activities in the map. These are just simple collectibles, horde/nest locations, or small collectibles that feel like filler. However, if you choose not to do them, the story missions and main side missions don’t give enough to you so you feel strong in any sense. Plus, you can’t afford to buy certain guns in camps, making progression feel like a slog. It’s a huge mess, and ties deeper into the game’s obsession with being an open-world experience despite not being fine-tuned to deliver a world that is engaging or immersive.

This game has a really strange sense of detail as well. On one hand, the dynamic weather effects, crunchy audio detail, and customizable bike parts are impressive. On the other hand, the amount of nameless and bland NPC’s, almost nonexistent weapon customization, and barren towns/cities are shocking. It doesn’t seem to be committed to anything, and instead feels like a bunch of concepts and details were flung around haphazardly without much care at all. The same is said for the various plotlines: some will be more dramatic than others yet lack storytelling quality, while others are complete wastes of time gameplay wise but contain some pivotal information for the story. It’s nuts! This game’s troubled development shows its various ways throughout its game world, but there’s one area it shows the most confusion in its consistency - its characters.

As the main character, Deacon St. John is a complete mess. He’s arrogant, selfish, a bit stupid, and “kind” of a raging sociopath. While the game tries to paint him as a product of a troubled background and the apocalypse, he comes off less endearing and more…unlikeable. He stumbles throughout the plot angrily muttering to himself constantly, he lacks social awareness in so many cases, and he consistently antagonizes other people and deflects criticism. The game pushes so hard for you to like and understand him and his decisions, but he never really goes through a proper arc himself. The same can be said for his wife, Sarah, who is constantly paraded around as his “pride and joy”, yet I never really bought their relationship to be anything close to believable. She’s a fairly empty character, and their relationship is exceptionally forced throughout the 30+ hour story. All of the games’ characters continue this flawed pattern, and none of them end up having a quality arc (Boozer, Skizzo, Iron Mike, Rikki, Corporal Garret, etc.). The game presents these one or two-dimensional characters, and never really explores much about their personalities or backgrounds. It’s generally a few sentences and that’s it, with the rest being focused on their interactions with Deacon. This would be fine if their interactions were written well, but they aren’t. I can’t buy that they are friends/partners in many moments, and I don’t buy that they have an established relationship most of the time. This was my biggest issue with the game - the lazy, predictable plot and its bone-dry characterization.

So why does this game not warrant a sequel when its sales numbers were generally solid? Why does Sony lack faith in its studio despite fans seemingly loving the game, compared to the poor reception from critics? I think the design of the game as a whole explains a lot. “Days Gone” has little focus on establishing its story and characters, expanding its gameplay loop, and creating an engaging world to embark in. While it attempted to be ambitious in all three, it instead wasted many years and likely large amounts of money on concepts for the game that were eventually scrapped. For a new IP in Sony’s hands, this likely did not bode well when there are series like “Horizon”, “God of War”, and even “Uncharted” in their back pocket (despite the supposed “end” of the latter series). Something must have happened where Sony executives found little faith in a sequel, and while it is a “bit” disappointing, I think by playing through this game I have come to understand the reasons.

When the credits finally rolled, I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, it was over. I ran through the world trying to do every activity on the map afterwards, hoping that I would finally find some satisfaction in the endgame content, and it just wasn’t enough to propel this game into a positive light. It’s an oversaturated pile of every open-world cliche that has been built up over the years, and it presents yet another frustratingly poor story into the sea of writing mediocrity that the gaming industry has. I would Not Recommend this game if you are not a fan of open-world games - it won’t change your mind one bit about them. However, if you enjoy open-world games, this one is still a tough sell since its gameplay loop becomes stale after a few dozen hours, its story is terribly written, and it lacks a real soul beneath its pretty surface.

Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)