Some games follow a lot of industry trends and end up great like a few Sony first party games. Others like Days Gone, use a lot of the same industry trends and just end up being painfully mediocre if not simply dull. The game does have a couple things going for it. The Horde stuff is actually a lot of fun. It's impressive how many of the zombies can be chasing you at once and, at least on PS5, it doesn't seem to affect the performance at all. Figuring out the best way to bottleneck them so you can take out as many as possible. For what seems like the selling point for the title, it takes most of the game till you actually get to fight them. There's a few optional hordes you can face earlier on but you'll probably feel like you have to wait till you get better weapons. Riding around on the bike and upgrading it is also pretty fun. I even liked refueling it with gas canisters which playing on the mode that deactivates the fast travel, I did a whole lot of that.
As for the rest of the game, it's just fairly standard stuff. You can fight, sneak and use melee weapons against your enemies. There isn't anything wrong with the mechanics but they're not that interesting. There's an open world with camps to clear out and dull collectibles to find. There is character progression and weapon upgrades and although it isn't particularly exciting, it is a bit satisfying to turn Deacon into a god by the end of the game, especially on higher difficulties.
I found myself pretty bored by the story and characters. The writing is pretty embarassing at times and Deacon doesn't do much to endear me to him. His constant muttering to himself is really off-putting. Oddly enough, Boozer was the character I most connected when he made a very bad first impression. The story is also way too long. You could cut out half of the story missions and not lose anything. I thought the amount of side content was fine but the main narrative felt like it was spinning its wheels for most of the game. Overall, the game is mostly OK. If you're absolutely desperate for some open-world zombies, I suppose it's serviceable.
As for the rest of the game, it's just fairly standard stuff. You can fight, sneak and use melee weapons against your enemies. There isn't anything wrong with the mechanics but they're not that interesting. There's an open world with camps to clear out and dull collectibles to find. There is character progression and weapon upgrades and although it isn't particularly exciting, it is a bit satisfying to turn Deacon into a god by the end of the game, especially on higher difficulties.
I found myself pretty bored by the story and characters. The writing is pretty embarassing at times and Deacon doesn't do much to endear me to him. His constant muttering to himself is really off-putting. Oddly enough, Boozer was the character I most connected when he made a very bad first impression. The story is also way too long. You could cut out half of the story missions and not lose anything. I thought the amount of side content was fine but the main narrative felt like it was spinning its wheels for most of the game. Overall, the game is mostly OK. If you're absolutely desperate for some open-world zombies, I suppose it's serviceable.