But with so few encounters, and only then so late in the game, it’s too little, too late. It’s a bummer because Days Gone is a concoction of concepts borrowed from other, better games, and the hordes could have made it distinct. It seems they don’t come out to play until Days Gone’s final hours, an unfortunate saving of the best for last that turned the lead-up into a drag. In my 40 hours of playtime, I encountered just three of these hordes. Nearly 40 different hordes roam Days Gone’s open world, but you aren’t asked to kill them until the story is nearly complete - and even then, it’s only an optional side quest. Then there are those huge mobs of freakers. Still, Days Gone doesn’t feel as refined as similar games, like Fry Cry and The Division 2 - the shooting mechanics don’t feel as good, and Oregon, though beautiful, isn’t a particularly interesting setting. I used the reputation to make his bike tougher, faster, and more fuel efficient. John faster, stronger, and harder to kill. Collecting items allowed me to craft weapons, explosives, and potions that kept me alive in “the shit.” Clearing out the camps earned me experience and boosted my reputation with various factions. I cleared infestations of zombies to make the roads safer, rummaged through government sites collecting information about the infection, and murdered hundreds of fellow humans in dozens of encampments. Similar to Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, Days Gone presented me with a large map and multiple points of interest. Days Gone, like The Walking Dead, repeatedly reminded me that humans are the real villain in this story. The enemy humans are all either murderous bandits or zombie worshipping cultists, people who threaten the stability of the more peaceful camps for which St. John isn’t yelling at or otherwise irritating other characters, he’s out in the wilderness - “the shit” as the folks of Days Gone call it, giving the game a wartime feeling - collecting helpful items and killing people. John, I wished the freakers would finally finish him off. He listens to radio broadcasts from a local Alex Jones-esque conspiracy theorist and yells at him like an elderly parent ranting at the talking heads on TV. When people ask him how he’s feeling, he lies and tell them he feels nothing. John criticizes the “mumbo jumbo” and tells him to shut up. John valuable into about the freaker threat, St. Later, when a scientist is trying to give St. They don’t teach that one in Conflict Resolution 101. But mere seconds into negotiations, he pulls a gun. He knows the situation is delicate, and success means putting his best foot forward. John, in need of medical help for a wounded friend, has to negotiate with a settlement that wants him dead. He often says one thing, then does the opposite. He has two modes: yelling at the top of his lungs or sarcastically muttering under his breath. Here we come to Days Gone’s first big problem: Deacon St. John is cruising the wilderness running errands for various human settlements, avoiding freakers, and mourning what he can only assume was his wife’s death. After Deacon’s wife Sarah is wounded, he puts her on the last government helicopter out of town, hoping she can get medical treatment somewhere safe. At the onset, zombies - called “freakers” here - have overrun everything. John, an outlaw biker and Afghanistan vet.
#Days gone tips tv
And while this narrative-driven open world game has earnest hopes of reaching the heights of TV’s golden age, the writing sadly comes across like a TV show an intern pitched after back-to-back binge watching The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy.ĭays Gone tells the story of Deacon St. In reality, it’s less about killing zombie swarms and more about fighting other humans. Days Gone has been pitched as an open-world zombie game challenging players to fight hordes of the living dead. Unfortunately, this epic fight happened exactly once, and only after a whopping 40 hours of playtime. It was an exhilarating moment that shows the potential of Days Gone, out April 26 for PlayStation 4 from developer SIE Bend Studio.