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Days Gone is an open-world, zombie apocalypse action-adventure. These days, the moment the word zombie is mentioned in a game description, especially if the game is not called Resident Evil, I tend to get somewhat apprehensive. I've grown rather wary of the zombie shtick. It has certainly been overdone in recent years and for every decent zombie game, there is probably a dozen middling or plain bad ones out there. But on occasion there is a game that does try to do something different. In the case of Days Gone, it was the open world that initially lured me in. I imagined a dynamic and active post apocalyptic landscape that could breathe some new life to this stale gimmick. Along with a hopefully promising story that could recapture some of that initial Walking Dead magic, back when it felt like there could be answers, or at least answers that mattered. Besides, Sony has released a few solid games on the PC and Steam these last few years, so why not? Right?
The game starts strong. We are introduced to the protagonist, the biker Deacon St. John, yes seriously that's his name. Along with his best mate Boozer and the love of his life Sarah. Things have already turned south as a virus that may or may not have been lab made, not in China this time, and released on purpose, quickly spreads devolving humans into rabid, flesh-eating monsters. That's right this is one of those living, sprinter zombies games. Deacon and friends are trying to escape town but in the chaos they get separated from Sarah. Years later, with Sarah believed dead, Deacon and Boozer are trying to survive in a very different Oregon and a very different world. The zombies, called freakers in this game, have all but taken over and the federal government has practically disappeared. A few small camps following different rules and leaders remain, trying to survive and hold on to a semblance of civilisation, while most others live nomadic lives as drifters, scavengers, robbers, cannibals and worse. Deacon wants to remain unaffiliated working as a fixer and bounty hunter for the camps, while dreaming along with Boozer to head north one day, where hopefully the cold and sparser population densities may mean an easier, safer life.
Perhaps surprisingly a key aspect and focus is the relationship between Deacon and Sarah. The romance. As it is explored heavily via flashbacks to the world before. The relationship is presented in a fairly idealised and quite beautiful manner, offering a poignant juxtaposition between that time and the current one. It also serves as a significant anchor for Deacon's character. Throughout the game Deacon shows a pretty jaded and dark side, a willingness to do anything for Boozer and people he cares about, including to commit atrocities if necessary. The loss of Sarah is key to all that. I have a hard time accepting just how far Deacon is willing to go, particularly considering he is constantly monologuing about how much he hates every obstacle he encounters, or the malice he displays towards drifters, despite being one himself. So perhaps the game doesn't manage the landing quite as smoothly as it could when it comes to characters, but I can understand what they were going for and I am largely fine with it. The same can be said about most important characters. The game tends to go too far, it's not that it doesn't try to explain their rationale, it's that even with these explanations they are still hard to believe. I mentioned Deacon before, there are many other examples such as Iron Mike and his pacifism.
The game's open world is one of its big selling points. At least at face value. Oregon as portrayed is indeed quite beautifully crafted, however inaccurate its geography. I enjoyed exploring the game a fair bit and I consider the idea of using motorbikes to travel around fairly ingenious. This adds a certain Mad Max aspect to the Walking Dead that clicks quite well. I spent many hours travelling around and rarely used the fast travel option, this showcases that the free roaming loop works. However, I can't say that I am fully satisfied here either. Generally speaking when a game makes the decision to introduce an open world, the key design question to answer is whether it's worth the cost. To make it worth the cost, the open world should be leveraged in as many ways as possible. Side-missions and optional content littered across the map is a fairly standard way to do that. Not here. Unfortunately in Days Gone the only things you can do in the open world is scavenge and find things to kill. All missions, including the relatively few side missions, are concentrated in the few survivor camps mentioned earlier. As entertaining as the game's core action loop may be and as fun as riding the motorbike from one place to the other, it does feel like there is just not all that much of substance to do out there. It comes across as filler.
So then we come to the cost. Open world games tend to be complex to design and often need extensive testing to avoid an adversary even more unwelcome and terrible than the zombies, that is the bugs. Days Gone unfortunately falls quite short here. It's simply put a buggy mess. In my time with the game, I experienced a significant number of glitches, physics and graphical ones being particularly prevalent, but also quest bugs, side-missions not completing, discussions happening in anachronic order, even crashes to desktop because I dared use a headset. All this despite the game being several years old by now and I imagine patched. I shudder at the thought of how bad this game would have been at launch. I can only say that Sony has quite some nerve to remove Cyberpunk 2077, or really any game, from their store for being buggy, when they publish this. I will clarify that I was able to complete the game, none of the bugs were game ending, some, like hitting a zombie with a baseball bat and sending it to the stratosphere, could even be entertaining in a sardonic manner. Whatever the case, this is all quite unfortunate. While we are on the topic of flaws, I should also mention that the game doesn't offer a conclusion to its most promising storyline, that of the federal government's role, effectively teasing it for a sequel.
Ever since Sony decided to bring several of their Playstation exclusives to Steam, I have been fairly interested in playing their back-catalogue. They tend to be high budget, single-player focused, often quite cinematic and with limited or no microtransactions. They also tend to be fairly complete and well made experiences. Days Gone was much more of a mixed bag. It is a highly promising game with an interesting concept, a good presentation and charming characters. It is also obviously incomplete, very rough around the edges and tremendously buggy. The game doesn't seem able to truly leverage its beautiful open world either. A game like that really shouldn't feel like it didn't give enough, especially not after 80 hours. But when much of that was going back and forth, however engaging that back and forth, there is a problem. I had a good time playing this game yes, but it had the potential to be so much more and in the end that's what stuck, that's perhaps why the review may feel somewhat more negative than positive. Whatever the case, I recommend this game to people that think a Walking Dead plus Mad Max open world combo sounds cool. Particularly to those brave few that aren't afraid of bugs.