This article originally ran under a different banner/website in May of 2019 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
My name is the Video Game Doomsayer. My world is full of half-baked live services and empty open-world games. Once, I reviewed games that wove gameplay and stories together. A warrior searching for captivating and exhilarating titles. As publishers extracted more enjoyment from games in an attempt to sell them for extra, each of us was broken in our own way. As I stand here wallowing in my madness, a sea of open-world game descends upon me. I tell myself, as long as they don’t beg for extra coins, I will give them a chance. So I exist in this wasteland known as the games industry. A man reduced to a single instinct …survive the onslaught of open-world sandboxes. Maybe one can change my mind. Today, I try to survive the zombie apocalypse of Oregon in the PS4 exclusive Days Gone.
Days Gone stars biker Deacon St. John, who is working desperately to be an extra in The Walking Dead. The game would like to think it is clever by slowly piecing together Deacon’s backstory but fails to notice the saturation of zombie stories that have plagued mainstream culture throughout the years. I am sure you would be shocked to learn that Deacon had a wife, who was injured in the initial zombie outbreak by someone who turns into a zombie. I am sure it would come as no surprise that he put her on a helicopter. Of course, he is currently trying to track her down, only to find that she is dead. Not exactly taking bold steps into unique zombie apocalypse narratives.
I feel as though I have been dropped in the middle of a season of The Walking Dead, especially when Deacon and other characters name drop people expecting us to know them. No, Deacon, I do not recall that member of your biker gang who betrayed the group. I do not know why you expect me to know that since you never mentioned it in your hours of mumbling to yourself. If this was an episode of The Walking Dead, then the director must have been away on holiday. Everyone is constantly talking over each other, constantly at different volumes to make the game feel like an audio mess. The generic story and audio mixing done by the interns makes Days Gone’s story near impossible to stay invested in.
I have stated in the past, a game’s story doesn’t need to be its strength if the gameplay is enjoyable. Unfortunately, Days Gone, is an uninspired open-world sandbox including bog-standard bandit and zombie camps. As is the tradition in these sandboxes, you can sneak around camps, distracting enemies with thrown rocks, or you can go in guns blazing with your unimaginative machine guns, shotguns, and pistols. Honestly, none of this gameplay really inspired me to take on any of the side missions, which really isn’t a good sign for sandboxes. Take Marvel’s Spider-Man, the combat was really exhilarating enticing me to do all the extra side missions. Never once did I walk away from clearing out a bandit camp with the same excitement I got from stopping crimes in New York City.
Naturally, every sandbox needs a mode of transportation to bring you from one bandit camp to another. Marvel’s Spider-Man had thrilling web-slinging so enjoyable I excused most of the repetitive open-world busywork. Could Days Gone fall into the same mindset? Well, Deacon was never bitten by a radioactive spider, so he stuck with his motorcycle since he is holding onto his pre-apocalypse biker gang life. Jean jacket and all. While not as exciting as web swing around New York, I didn’t write off the motorcycle until I started driving it. The motorcycle is really finicky when it comes to controlling it. Small flicks of the controller sticks cause Deacon to make wide turns on the bike making it near impossible to not crash into trees and abandoned cars in the Oregon wilderness. This becomes especially frustrating when bounty targets try to escape on bikes resulting in a motorcycle chase. During these chases, you have to try to shoot the target while dodging debris on the path. Most of my deaths in Days Gone occurred during these sections and being forced to replay them became torturous. Most of these chases resulted in me hitting a tree causing Deacon to fly off the bike like a rodeo clown. ROLL UP!!! ROLL UP!!! ENJOY WATCHING A PATHETIC BIKER BE LAUNCHED FROM HIS BIKE LIKE A CIRCUS CLOWN LAUNCHED FROM A CANNON.
To be fair, the motorcycle is somewhat unique to most open-world vehicles, due to the fact it requires maintenance. The motorcycle needs fuel and repairs as it is used in order to function properly. While the opportunity is available to leave you stranded from running out of fuel in the middle of the night in the woods with zombies looking to make you their next meal, Days Gone never wants to create any tense moments like this. Like every other open-world game, you must scrounge around camps for supplies to use for crafting ammo and weapons. These camps are littered with gas cans and scrap that you can use to keep your bike in prime condition. As a result, I never ran out of gas or was unable to repair my bike. In fact, I never ran out of most crafting materials and reached the point where I couldn’t get rid of most materials. All of this results in another bland open world where you mindless drive from camp to camp, killing all the faceless antagonists and picking up all the useless crap.
Now I hear your cries, “DOOMSAYER, IF YOU KNEW DAYS GONE WAS GOING TO BE A GENERIC SANDBOX, WHY DID YOU GET IT?”
Well, my loyal followers, recall the 2018 E3 Sony conversance that happened many moons ago. There was a Days Gone trailer that depicted a human protagonist running from what seemed to be a tidal wave of zombies. It certainly reminded me of the zombies in the World War Z film. Fighting a flood of zombies seemed like an unnerving experience that could scratch the horror itch that clings to me like an infectious disease. Alas, it was not meant to be. The zombie hoards are nearly impossible to combat. Even facing three Freakers with some powerful weapons can be daunting. The Freakers can easily close the gap on you, and one hit from them will lock Deacon in a recoil animation. This also a hoard to easily keep your lock in a state where you overwhelmed and unable to stop the hoard ripping you apart. The few times I ran into a hoard, I attempted to get on my bike and run for it, but the hoard kept knocking me off my bike. I saw no solution to combating the hoards. It honestly feels like the zombie game I was looking for is World War Z. Along with four-player co-op fun, they also have a sea of zombies that you and your friends can pick apart.
The zombies, in general, are not really enjoyable to combat. I often found myself clearing out the zombie camps because those camps prevent you from fast-traveling to certain paths. In order to avoid mindlessly driving around, I would clear out those camps like an uninterested data entry clerk. With the game downplaying the tidal wave of zombies, you notice how generic the zombies are. You have a standard zombie, small children zombies, and a zombie that screams to alert other zombies. Zombies do get stronger at night, but Dying Light did that first so it doesn’t count. It almost feels like Days Gone is ashamed to be a zombie game with its token zombie ideas. I do not express anger towards Days Gone, merely just boredom. In between loading screens, I started playing the Hearthstone single-player adventure, The Dalaran Heist. I continued playing the Hearthstone adventure even when I was driving around the Oregon forestry. If that doesn’t tell you my thoughts on Days Gone and don’t know what else will. If you find systematically clearing about bandit camps cathartic and have completed every other sandbox game Ubisoft has published, then you mind find some enjoyment in Days Gone. I personally recommend any other PlayStation 4 exclusive over Days Gone. It feels very limb standing next to massive titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man. No microtransactions though. Which is nice, but also very sad when that is the only compliment I can give. I would say I hope we are done with bland open worlds, but just like zombies, I am sure they will never truly die.