Days Gone is a game that has been long waited for first party PlayStation enthusiast, the game unfortunately falls short on what could have been promising adventure and here is why.
Days gone starts with a pandemic infection wiping out humanity and we skip right to a few years down the road from the start of the infection. You play as a bland one-dimensional character Deacon St John a bounty hunter who stayed in the Oregon region to find answers about his past. The game starts off like a Mad Max Situation, your bike is taken and stripped for parts, so your objective is to build your bike from scratch and make it the best bike in all the land. I progressed through the game at quite a slow pace and upgrading my bike seem to be more of a chore then an enjoyment, I feel this way because it seem to take a long time to build the trust up in the camps to get the parts I needed or wanted in this case. While I was not building up my bike, I was out performing what seem to be very mindless tasks and exploring the very bland world of Days Gone.
While its not all bad there is a lot of fun to be had when it comes to Days Gone, infiltrating drifter camps and taken them down silently with my boot knife never got old or tiring. The gun gameplay is unique on its own but can be a bit aggravating when it comes to unlocking them, just like the bike parts you must have a certain trust levels unlocked. Like The Last Of Us the melee combat is unique and very satisfying from crafting to brutal take downs with a piece of two by four with a saw blade in it; another thing that is like the last of us is the crafting system of collecting resources to craft things like Molotov cocktails and med kits.
The story in days gone is certainly a unique one, there is not really a certain one main story the closest thing that comes to it is trying to find out what happens to Deacons wife as you re live the past with their relationship and the events that transpired in it. But there are many story lines in the game, none that are very captivating, and it seems to take so long to complete these story lines an unnecessary amount of time. In Reality while playing this game I felt like I was going from one mind numbing mission to the other because I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over; not to say they were not fun but the fun came in spurts, the game feels longer then it should have been.
While you are not cruising around on your bike or going from mission to mission you are fighting off hordes off freaker’s. When fighting off the hordes having focus shot is a must and having a automatic rifle, extended clip and Molotov cocktails are vitals when it comes to focusing on this task and is a lot of fun.
Days Gone suffers from performance issues, the open world is very bland it would have done better as a linear game, and falls short when it comes to the fun factor. What could have been a great game seems like it tried too hard.
Days Gone 7/10
Reviewed by The Nerds Den
Responding to one user saying that they'll "never get over what they did" to Bend Studio, Morrison says: "To be fair we didn't make enough substantial progress over the three years I was there. I saw the eventual cancellation coming prior to it."
This live service push should’ve never happened in the first place! It put most of their major studios behind schedule big time.
A big thank you to Jim for this shortsighted, greedy blunder. A half thank you to Herman, because he stupidly kept some of them going.
The PS5 gen has essentially been a bust, though a few gems such as Returnal, Astro Bot, and Steller Blade.
We might not have had unnecessary remasters (Last of Us, Horizon) or remakes (Last of Us, again) if not for this. Alas, with the die already having been cast, we hope for a return to form.
But, along with the current state of the industry, I don't think we will get it.
I disagree. Somy needs to be able to compete in all genre. They have nothing less than studios that do have successful live service games, including MS which is solely focused on service games. Sony had a live service success with Helldivers that people like to not mention in these articles.
I disagree. Sony needs to be able to compete in all genre. They have nothing less than studios that do have successful live service games, including MS which is solely focused on service games. Sony had a live service success with Helldivers that people like to not mention in these articles.
Sony is stupid for thinking live service would work for them. Or anything else they do for that matter.
To work on something for 3 years and say that no substantial progress has been on it seems to be the trend happening across the industry. It's one thing to work without stress or crunch but in 3 years they could've used everything made for Days Gone and had a sequel out by now. Or worked on something smaller that they actually wanted to work on and with actual direction.
Sony was the one telling them to do something different. I don’t blame Bend Studios. It was a lot of pressure pushing live service titles out and it backfired.
DaysGone wasn’t a bad title. It sold pretty well too. It sold 8 million copies on PS4 as of 2021. Almost 2 million on PC as of 2022. I don’t know the remastered version but it sold decent for a game that was already on the PlayStation Catalog.
They should have let them make a sequel. The series was made to be a trilogy.
The canceled game was reportedly using the Decima engine. It would make sense if their next game would be using that. I know DaysGone was using UE4. But if they did make a sequel I would prefer Decima over UE5. But that’s wishful thinking.
I’m not against a Syphon Filter remake. But just give us something memorable.
This is where there's a huge misconception that everyone is still running with. The idea of a sequel wasnt taken off the table, ONE MANS PITCH for a sequel wasnt greenlit, there would definitely be more than one pitch for a sequel
The one man was the former director of Bend Studios. It not being “greenlit” was what I was referring to when they asked if Bend Studios would be interested in making a Syphon Filter game, after they released Days Gone. Don’t understand what was misleading.
https://www.thegamer.com/so...
The misleading part is that studios get several pitches, their could've easily been like 3 separate days gone sequel pitches, just because he's director doesn't mean his pitch couldn't have been lame, i mean he was talking about it being a multiplayer game, that already sounds iffy. But everyone talks as if the idea of a sequel as a whole was dismissed and we just don't know that.
There’s definitely no denying that some games might have been undeservedly bashed by critics. The reasons why vary from game to game, but there’s a lot of diamonds out there in gaming that have been obscured by plenty of rough.
Return Fire (PS1). It has a Metacritic of 71 but it is one of the best games on PS1. https://www.metacritic.com/...
Warframe. Started life with a 64 on meta but improved quite a bit over the years. I put north of 1000hrs in.
I suppose that's just a case of the score not updating as the game slowly got better. The PS5 and Switch versions are 85/86.
Can we address how odd it is for the idea of hated by critics seems to work at anything below 80%? 3 of these 10 have a critics score of 70 or higher and only 1 has a score below 50.
I would say anything below 40 would be bad / hated, 40-59 is ok but missable, 60-69 is functionally average, 70-79 is good, 80-89 is very good, 90-94 is outstanding GOTY candidate, 95+ is genre defining
Ex-Days Gone director supports Bend Studio after the cancellation of its live-service project, stating that devs sometimes have no choice.
I don’t blame Bend or Bluepoint. This reeks of management trying to fit a circle where a square should be.
Hopefully they revisit Days Gone 2 (without the muiltplayer pitch they originally went with)
Or go oldschool and do online like they used to.
Imagine Days Gone 2 with online like Resistance 2, with the PvE: humans Vs hordes! That could be a blast.
It is fine with an online coop horde mode.. but the first one was amazing they are capable of taking over tnto new heights
i swear, we are not even a month into the new year, and that guy is still talking about this.
When this guy does the job he's supposed to, he does it well. He's the writer for Days Gone. So, again, when he plays to his strengths, he does well. Give him downtime to reflect, and then you get this nonsense. This a writer by profession sounding distraught a live service game didn't make it when he's in the business and makes his living off penning treatments for single-player games, he should be peeing his pants in excitement! It shows, as I mentioned below you, there's a puppet master pulling the strings someone where that doesn't know a thing about gaming trying to change the industry and is willing to fight the most painful upstream battle to get there thinking, in his own (or her own) mind, crawling across burning hot coals has an even brighter light at the end of the LSG tunnel
Why is everyone so shocked by this? John Garvin is a writer, he wrote Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Days Gone, it's WHAT HE DOES! The fact he says: I guess we'll go back to making single-player games like he's pouting shows there's something seriously wrong in the industry and there's a puppet master pulling the strings. What writer pens a solid LSG? Said nobody EVER! He should be happy he's back to work penning a solid treatment for an amazing story-driven game, that's what PlayStation DOES! Xbox does LSGs because that's what they're trying to sell you, Xbox Live. Remember when Sony dragged their feet to make PSN competitive and eventually charged for it when it was free all along? Because they were focused on solid single-player story driven games.
Gamers have been telling devs FOREVER they don't want LSGs on PlayStation but it's like that same puppet master is willing to fight against the current to try and tell gamers they actually want LSGs, like he wants to save an immense amount of money to put in the effort to try and brainwash his customers into taking the red pill they don't want to swallow. Someone is making a lot of effort behind the curtain to move the needle and change the trajectory of the gaming industry, and it's toward the sun to burn up. Microtransactions are like setting a gambling addict loose in a casino. They don't care how he winds up, they just want his pocket change. They have the disclaimer to silence the anti-gamblers, but they don't want to help him, they just want his money. That's what this is. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" they say, but that could be deceiving as well, there could be a woman behind the curtain. A Sarah Bond type that doesn't know anything about gaming, all business and wants to run the industry from a business perspective with a business mind put into place as a publicity stunt, not an actual resume that qualifies her for the job. Come on, a woke company hiring a BLACK, FEMALE, EXECUTIVE! She's got a business degree from Harvard and Yale. Privileged up the uterus and no history, whatsoever, in gaming and she's head of Xbox? At least when Tom Kalinske entered the business at SEGA, he was making Barbie and Heman toys, he knew how kids thought was well aware of what his company with doing with Intellivision so he knew and say and talked with the gaming guys, he just hasn't seen 16 but tech until SEGA, but, Sarah Bond that knows nothing about games is dictating how your future gaming life goes based on trends plagued by casual gamers? No wonder Xbox is going the direction it's going. Nadella also needed a YES MAN (woman) in the driver seat that wouldn't fight his plan and Bond was the perfect transplant. Someone naive enough to just do whatever he was told. A tool. Just like Herman Hulst. Difference is, Hulst has a history in gaming, and a good one with Guerilla Games which is where they should have left him, the. guerilla would've only gone the LSG route and failed and learned from those poor choices instead of all of PlayStation suffering from it.
There's a major problem in gaming. Someone moving around in there is a cancer infecting and causing major damage that needs to be stopped
How is online a 9? What online aspect were you even rating?
Basically what I got from that was you want all the best stuff straight away and shouldn't have to do missions etc to unlock them. Ummmm ok!
I'm loving the game and been playing non stop since release
LOL, ok I'll play too!!!
Graphics: 9
Sound: 9 for me I love the tone, I find it very immersive
Gameplay: 8
Fun Factor: 10 I haven't had this much fun in an open world game ever (RDR2 sucked, GTAV I also loved and Herizon ZD was also amazing)
Online: ?????
Hang on... How did online get a 9? There is NO online.
Anyway, I like this game! Sure its nothing groundbreaking like we have come to love about PS this gen but its still a very decent game. I am about 12hrs into it and I can't wait to go home and continue playing it. I agree there are definitely aspects of the game that could have been better. Like buildings, they are bland,. The controls of the motorcycle suck and yes St John seems a bit blah. But overall its a very decent game. Graphics are extremely good! I would say this game is a 7.5-8