Days Gone

Sony's exclusive first-party console games from the late 2010s started making their way to PC at the turn of the decade. Days Gone was not the first of them but it was the first to make it onto my backlog. The game's reception was lukewarm and maybe that's why Sony declined the pitch for a sequel by Bend Studio. Overall Days Gone is an extremely solid production; its weakness lies in its plot premise and writing. The game does however cast a delicious sequel hook at the end, and people who've gotten that far do seem to want to see where a second game would go.

What else are you gonna do?

Days Gone is set in post-apocalyptic Oregon, US. A virus outbreak has transformed most of the population into zombies, Freakers. The game's protagonist Deacon "Deek" St. John (played by Sam Witwer) is a former motorcycle club member who is still flying the colors with his buddy Boozer. Deek lost his wife Sarah when the virus hit, and has been counting the days since she's been gone. At the start of the game, the day count is at over two years: Deek and Boozer drift about, doing occasional jobs for survivor camps, free to go wherever on their bikes.

The story's immediate problem is that there's nothing truly grabbing you. You're just doing pretty standard activities in a zombie-infested open world while Deek is failing to deal with his loss. Sarah's death was never confirmed and Deek can't let go. In one conversation with Boozer at 1/3 through the game, Deek reasons why people kept going after everything had been lost is because what the hell else were they gonna do. I feel that sums up the vibe for most of the game. Unfortunately for Days Gone, a person playing it can do something else instead of keep going.

It's hard to say if the story really becomes any better later on. You're definitely more involved in events, more immersed, but at 2/3s, new characters introduced have the weirdest writing. And there are undeniable problems towards the end, as if the developers had to rush the game, having to cut things out, which resulted in certain things coming out of the blue.

Days Gone has a lot of moments when you're out there in the shit with someone, either on foot or bike. The sections are interesting enough on your first run but become dull as hell on a second playthrough, being such forced and obvious exposition. The game has achievements for beating the game on New Game+, and thus I had to go through the unskippable exposition again for 100% completion.

Another detail in the writing is the way Deek jabbers and mutters. It's not too heavy in face-to-face dialogue but over radio and when talking to himself, there's a whole lot of it. It adds character, and I think Witwer and voice directing did good job. However, Deek starts to sound unintentionally unhinged when he comments on points-of-interests or ambushes you're about to drive into, especially if you can't see any ambush anywhere. What sniper ambush, Deek? I think the Marion Forks infestation zone has some trigger glitched because Deek kept mentioning it on both playthroughs even after I had cleared it.

Riding the open road

Bend Studio made sure the PC version of Days Gone turned out great. The game runs smooth and looks beautiful. Character models are impressive; I was particularly impressed by the lifelikeness of Rikki. Days Gone heavily recommends a controller -- for absolutely no reason: it plays perfectly on mouse and keyboard. I didn't need to change any keybindings either as they are for once sensibly standard by default.

The game simply feels really good to play. It's not quite on the same level of quickness and responsiveness as the Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy which I think is the gold standard in third person shooter feel. But it's close. Mantling could be more universal and responsive. I think the only janky thing I kept encountering -- and it's partially due to me being impatient -- was when you have to raise your fallen bike. (Some wandering Freaker always pushing it over.) Most often I wanted to immediately get going so I kept holding E and W, which resulted in Deek starting to run away after the bike was up. As a developer, I would have changed the interaction so that if you keep the interact key pressed, Deek would actually get on the bike too.

The bike feels amazing to drive. Over the game you can upgrade it for more traction, speed, and durability. But even without any upgrades, it controls great. Colliding with an immovable object can be surprisingly lethal but that happened rarely to me thanks to the bike doing what I wanted.

The bike needs fuel but that is found in plentiful supply. It is possible to run out in the middle of nowhere but the game world is not actually that huge to make a trip on foot for a gas canister. Distances appear longer because the map has obstacles like mountains and bodies of water that deny direct traversal. The tunnel and canyon chokepoints are there most likely to make the world seamless, free of visible loading screens.

Gasoline has an expiration date in real life but this is not the first post-apocalyptic game to ignore that fact. Gas pumps at gas stations also work even without power. I hadn't expected them to actually do and didn't realize that was a thing until I noticed Spawnicus Rex refueling in one of his videos.

Speaking of Spawnicus Rex, I highly recommend his video on how to get the SMP-9 early. The SMP-9 is a submachine gun -- one of the best sidearms, if not the best -- that is awarded upon reaching 10% progression in the Horde Killer storyline. Mr. Rex shows where to find resources at the start of the game and how to use them to wipe out your first hordes easily. The guide is excellent and he has a great voice to listen to -- kind of reminds me of Gopher whose Skyrim and Fallout modding videos I've watched.

A great variety of weapons

Having the SMP-9 as early as possible makes things so much simpler. It doesn't mow through hordes on its own on the game's harder difficulties -- you need a light machinegun for that -- but it will still be a great help until you get a good primary and special weapon.

As a primary weapon, I prioritized high damage and full auto rifles -- high ammunition capacity when going horde killing. After clearing all marauder camps -- thus basically for your NG+ run -- you unlock the Rock Chuck, an integrally-suppressed assault rifle. It's the not best rifle but having a gun with a permanent suppressor is quite handy. Days Gone is a rare game to not have suppressors reduce weapon damage, instead having durability. I wish that level of immersivity extended further. For instance, I wish guns had fire mode selectors when applicable: it's a challenge to even line up your first shot because the full auto crosshairs are always a bit spread out. Being able to go prone would be cool too.

As your special weapon, the game initially hands you a crossbow, which I loathed. With its trajectory and crosshair, I found it an extremely difficult weapon to use. And if you score just a bodyshot, the weapon's silent nature tends to be moot. The crossbow does have a use once you unlock special ammunition for it. The incendiary bolts are more efficient in kerosene usage compared to molotovs for taking out nests. And the explosive bolts are... explosive. Even so, I preferred a sniper rifle, the best one being of course the top damage .50 BFG. (The game avoids stepping on gun manufacturer licenses but I think you can easily guess what each gun is supposed to be if you know the real life one.)

Sniper rifles are useful for taking out humans and the tough Freaker variants. It's silly that heavily armored humans of the endgame will not die to a headshot even from the .50 BFG. In fact, I think even lighter armored humans refused to die to a headshot, similarly first shedding off their helmet. I suppose it is possible to have a helmet that does stop a .50 caliber rifle shot but that thing must not be fun to carry around (and not sure if it would even save you). I noticed enemies being this resistant on my NG+ Survival II run so the difficulty might have affected it. Otherwise the game had been quite reasonable with its damage model: a shot to the head is lethal.

Signature feature

Against hordes, a sniper rifle won't do much even if it penetrates a few Freakers with one bullet. The hordes are fun but they don't feel as dangerous as they're maybe intended to be. Bushes and throwable explosives are such an effortless way to take them out. Around buildings, or even just cars and trucks, running away from them is easy too because Deek climbs up faster than them. I guess the only place you really don't want to fight a horde is out in the open. But the times I stumbled upon a horde by accident were few in number. Generally you see them before they notice you or you hear the layered music theme starting to build up. The latter is a cool feature: the music reminded me of 28 Days Later. Music in general is very fitting for the game.

I think they could've spiced up at least few of the hordes by adding tougher variants in the mix. Like if you had a couple of Breakers or Reachers there. Well, maybe not Breakers because they didn't seem to like other Freakers much.

Easy but long

100%ing Days Gone requires playing its challenge maps. You don't need an absolute full clear in them: you only need a bronze medal in sub-challenges at minimum. But the main ones do need to be completed with gold medals. Some involve driving a bike (or a golf cart), most fighting Freakers. Some are easier; the only one that gave me true trouble was the Surrounded endless horde challenge. I couldn't keep the score multiplier from resetting while running away from the Freakers. I had to look up a cheesy way to beat it.

The jacket patches you unlock in the challenge maps benefit you in the main game as well. They're not drastic bonuses but do stack up with your regular perks. I did the challenge maps after I had beaten the game on Normal. NG+ Survival II afterwards didn't feel any different.

Survival difficulty does disable enemy highlighting in survival vision. HUD is also only visible for few seconds when activating the vision. It's clear the difficulty was added post release and wasn't planned originally: the HUD flashing is so awkward. Not having the minimap visible does make you pay attention to the actual game when driving instead of being fixated on the highlighted route on the map.

The difficulty also disables fast traveling. I rarely used it on the first run; it only saves time, not fuel. You do end up driving back and forth a lot when doing jobs for the camps or going for anything optional. I did everything there was on my first run: camp trust levels carry over to NG+ and so I could focus on the main story and avoid the majority of the repeated back and forth driving. It took me 100 hours to unlock every achievement.

At one point in the story, you have to fetch Boozer's bike on your own. On my first run I drove there and upon getting back on Boozer's bike, Rikki informed me she had sent a team to fetch my bike. On the second run, I decided to leave my bike in the camp and go on foot to see what would happen. The exact same thing happened: Rikki had sent a team to fetch a bike that didn't need fetching. Attention to detail, Bend Studio -- where is it?