Review: Days Gone

Zombie games. Most definitely bulldozed into the public eye by the success of the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of Duty World At War. Ever since, zombie modes and zombie games have capitalised on this for the better half of a decade. In the last few years, the genre has seen better days, as the public has mostly moved on, while the core zombie fanatics remain, myself included. In full honesty however, the genre has grown stale, with too few games released capturing my attention for long. So many copy the same formula, the same concept, the same methods.

Days Gone is not one of them.

Set in a modern day world in the American state of Oregon, you play as Deacon St. John, an Enforcer NOMAD of the Mongrels Club. All hell is set loose as the Freaks, the zombie-like plague, has hundreds of thousands of infected people bearing down on him, his biker brother Boozer (AKA Boozeman) and your wife, Sarah. Sustaining an injury, Sarah is placed on a helicoper by a Nero scientist inter O'Brien, while Deacon stays behind to protect his injured brother.
Fast forward over 700 days, Deacon and Boozer are Drifters, people who travel from camp to camp running errands, saving enough credits to buy upgrades for their bikes and finally travel north for a fresh start and escape their ghosts...until everything starts going right, and wrong, for Deacon.
The story here is incredibly deep and satisfying, on par with The Last of Us; never focusing on unnecessary exposition, but drip-feeding information at the right time. Stories and characters branch out and expand as time goes on, feeling organic with the time frame and how Deacon's position in teh world changes around him. After almost 40 hours of gameplay later, I was extremely happy with the conclusion, with the characters arcs being neatly wrapped up, and the appropriate questions being answered (and so many more being added with the secret ending, wink wink). The sound effects and musical score were also genius and fitted perfectly into the world, although I do wish there was more of a score to be had. The world was so open and large that it felt empty and dead; don't get me wrong, that's great for a zombie game, but not so great for players sitting on over 24 hours of gameplay and listening to the same dialogue lines, the same engine noise and same screams over and over. Graphics wise was nothing short of beautiful; so many times I stopped to just admire the view, especially when it began to snow or exploring snowy regions. As a man who has never seen snow, it was breathtaking to see it and experience it in such detail. It's scary when it wants to be scary, and jawdropping when it wants to be jawdropping.

Onto to the meat of the game - gameplay. The only way I can explain it is to compare it to a good mix of Dying Light and The Last of Us; players can explore a massive, maaaaasive open world, slaying Freaks, Horde of hundreds of Swarmers, Screamers, Breakers and more, traveling from place to place on their trusty motorbike. Being in a broken world, you're gonna need supplies, which can mostly be found in camps, but to make items, you'll need to find what you need (or wait for Boozer to do it). Finding most of what you need is easy enough, it's tracking down that last thing (looking at you Kerosene, WHY CAN'T I JUST USE PETROL?!) that completes the craft. But it doesn't stop there. Your bike breaks, you need scrap to fix it. Bike run dry? Better find a gas can. Out of bullets? Best hope you refilled your satchel, or your melee weapon isn't near breaking.
Then comes the world itself; it can be slightly empty in certain areas during the day, but at night it when they shine...with the dozens or hundreds of Freak bodies scrambling to come and consume you since you accidentally fired a shot nearby instead of using your bow. NERO injector sites to increase your health/stamina/focus, Horde locations, Ambush sites, marauder camps, camp objectives, there's plenty to keep you busy long after you've finished the game (or like me, in between missions). The one mistake to note is that doing all of this, you may sense a theme; your tactics never really change.
Go to a location, track/follow your target, take them/their group out, return for credit, repeat. This also follows for most of the main story. In short, there is a lot, a LOT, of simple gameplay.
BUT, simple doesn't mean bad. Repetitive is a bad thing, that is for sure, but repetitive isn't bad as long as the gameplay is fun, exhilarating or keeps your attention, which I'm glad to say Days Gone did for me in spades.
By far the biggest pull for this game was its voice acting. Sam Witwer takes the reigns of Deacon and once more, he steals the show. He truly creates Deacon as a living, breathing man; the additional effort in his vocal work to make Deacon sound paranoid, scared, angry, even exhausted after finishing a firefight is nothing short of phenomenal. The supporting cast was also fantastic in creating such a living world, feeding off the world around them; character emotions felt raw and electric when conflict came into play. 

Naturally, I do have to mention bugs and problems, sadly which this game does have in spades. Respawning after dying can put you in insta-kill areas, scenes will often keep motion blur at bizarre moments. Screen tearing and frame rate issues are incredibly frequent when Freak numbers are larger, world loading can also have problems after upgrading your bike to faster speeds, with camps never fully loading and being a hollow, empty mess of sinkholes. Graphics can also take a dip during these moments, with assets partially disappearing in areas or completely reverting to their Normals mapping (with a strong T pose quickly following after the load). 

In full honesty, I've been struggling to grade this game. When it comes to reviewing, I try to be as clear as I possibly can, showing what parts I believe most gamers will enjoy, while explaining others that most will dislike. This game has changed my opinion somewhat on buggy releases; there is a genuine mistake or things outside the creators control that occur, and then there's pushing a half baked game out the door to earn a quick buck. This is Bend Studio's first game release on the PS4 and their first main console release in almost 12 years. This studio poured their heart and soul into this game. There are parts that do hold this game back, but what's been released at launch is more than enough to deserve your attention, with hopefully more coming in the near future.
Days Gone is a love letter to the zombie genre, and while it is flawed, any gamer who enjoys the genre and is in need of a new good story heavy game in 2019 should look no further.

Days Gone: 8/10