I got Days Gone as one of the free games with my PSPlus and I was curious about it because I had heard so many mixed things from people. Some liked it, some didn't, and some felt that it was a good game, but bland in some places. I started playing and one of the things I thought was good was the options for accessibility helping with the game controls to make the game a more enjoyable experience. Accessibility is important and I know for me with the arthritis in my hands, having controls I can manage really helps. You can choose the difficulty of the game based on what you're looking for. I tend to go for the easy/casual setting my first playthrough so I can just enjoy the story and see what the game is like so that's what I went with.
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| Sorting out the accessibility controls. |
The premise for Days Gone is pretty easy to follow, you play as outlaw biker Deacon St. John in an open world post apocalypse complete with zombies, gangs, and feral wild animals. The story starts off intensely with Deacon, his wife Sarah, and his best friend Boozer attempting to flee the city as a virus known as the Hooligan Virus has devastated the world turning humans into violent zombies known as Freakers. They manage to find a helicopter run by the National Emergency Restoration Organization (NERO), but there is only room for two more. Deacon makes the decision to stay behind with Boozer who has been stabbed during the chaos and promises to reunite with Sarah later.
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| Deacon and Boozer. |
The story moves ahead two years later with Deacon and Boozer working as mercenaries and Sarah is believed to be dead because the refugee camp she was staying at was overrun by Freakers. Deacon and Boozer make a plan to travel north searching for a better life. This is where the game really begins with a tutorial on how the inventory system works and what the user interface is like. I wasn't thrilled about going into a darkened highway tunnel, but I worked out what to do with the items and learned how to fight my first Freaker. Sam Witwer who does the voice acting for Deacon does a great job with the nuances of Deacon's frustration, anger, and playing it cool vibe when talking to Boozer. I like Sam Witwer a lot because he's incredibly talented and while there were some places where it felt a little odd for Deacon to be talking, he absolutely did great voicing Deacon.
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| Boozer and Deacon explore a tunnel. |
Things take a turn for the worse when Boozer is attacked by a gang of cultists, the Rippers who burn Boozer's arm with a blowtorch. Deacon makes sure to get Boozer back to their safehouse and they find out the Rippers put a bounty on them. Deacon has to figure out how to get medicine for Boozer, avoid the Rippers, and also avoid all the Freakers that roam everywhere. This aspect of the game shows Deacon's motorcycle and how his bike is his constant companion. The motorcycle can make the difference between a lot of life or death situations with Deacon able to speed up and race through a group of Freakers or avoiding different gang factions. The controls for the motorcycle aren't great because sometimes it would fishtail all over the place making me crash the bike. I'm also very clumsy so it took me a bit to get used to it. Once I did, I found I liked riding the bike everywhere because there are some very pretty scenic forests and mountains in Oregon which is where Days Gone takes place. I found myself stopping when it was safe to look around and appreciate the views. It was also interesting to ride the bike by areas that showed just how different the world had become with abandoned cars and houses.
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| Deacon drives through an abandoned highway. |
There are three camps where Deacon can trade, get upgrades for his bike, and get fuel. In order to get these things, he has to do jobs for each camp in order to earn credits and be able to unlock certain upgrades for the bike and for better weapons. There are story locked missions with these camps too which also help Deacon earn trust with them and as part of the story Boozer does join Deacon later for some of these. Most of the side quests are interesting, but some feel a bit tedious because they're essentially fetch quests. Once you get them done you receive some pretty good rewards and you also are able to trade for even better items because the trust between camps and Deacon increases. You also are able to learn a bit of back story with a couple of the leaders of those camps and there was one that was my personal favorite because you got to hear why and how they eventually changed.
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| Deacon roaming the woods doing a job. |
There is very much a sense of danger and everything has the potential to kill you in Days Gone. I really hated going into tunnels or dark caves, because there was always a great chance that I was about to have something kill me whether it was a group of Freakers, wild animals, Rippers, or other gangs. There are quite a few parts of the main story that required me to go into dark tunnels or caves which heightened my spooky vibes a lot.
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| We're going into the spooky tunnel with a blood trail? Oh, good. |
Being sneaky and using stealth is a good idea in Days Gone because there are so many things that respond to the slightest sound. As Deacon levels up you unlock skills that enhance those abilities as well as increasing your inventory or being able to craft things like healing items. Salvage plays a big part in the game because everything can be used to make something that Deacon can use that increase his chances of survival. I also found that increasing his accuracy with weapons I used the most helped immensely. My personal favorite was the sniper rifle because I could take a lot of enemies out while hiding. Stealth became my best friend in this game.
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| Deacon keeps his distance from Freakers. |
The Freakers scared me. I learned very quickly that it was dangerous to travel at night because that is when they're most active. I also learned that I had to sneak anywhere that was a potential spot for Freakers to hang out like caves and barns. I was absolutely terrified of the hordes. A couple of Freakers are bad enough, but an entire horde with hundreds of Freakers is a damn nightmare. I died so many times to those as I tried to run, speed up the bike, or use every explosive I had. The Freakers are not slow shuffle zombies. They're fast, vicious, and will tear everything apart. It's not impossible to take down a horde, it just requires a lot of planning, strategy, and running, so much running. I was ecstatic when I took down my first horde because it was definitely not easy.
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| A Freaker up close. One is fine, but more is yikes. |
The story itself for Days Gone isn't bad. I did like the interaction between Deacon and Boozer. You are able to see the close relationship they have not just as best friends, but as a dynamic where they consider each other brothers. I think that Boozer's more understated demeanor balances out Deacon's intensity and there are moments where there is a softening of Deacon's hard exterior when he talks to his best friend. There are story missions that have Deacon checking out the old NERO camps for supplies and also searching for answers. You're able to find tape recordings in some of these that unlock some of what happened at the start of the outbreak. There are also some required stealth missions with current NERO members where Deacon has to stealthily follow and eavesdrop on their conversations. I found these to be tedious and frustrating because the slightest mistake would cause me to fail it and I would have to start all over again.
The story arc with the Rippers was intriguing, but I felt it kind of fizzled out at the end. That particular chapter could have been shorter. I think Days Gone could have had some better editing with certain chapters like this one that dragged on and felt like it was just there to add content to the game rather than adding to the story itself. Frankly, this chapter could either have been shorter or lifted out altogether. There is another story arc in a later chapter that I also felt this way about because it really felt like the game suffered from some overarching subplots that didn't need to be there. There are some characters that are really well thought out and there are others that don't fare well because they feel like cardboard cutouts that are just there as window dressing.
This isn't to say I didn't like Days Gone because I did. Melee combat is a lot of fun and I found myself tinkering with different materials to make some brutal weapons for taking down Freakers. I also enjoyed tinkering with the different firearms and having some pretty souped up sniper rifles and explosives. All of those things could change the tide of a battle in some very cool ways. I also liked that there is a photo mode in the game and I spent a lot of time taking a lot of great picturesque pictures of the Oregon landscape. The music soundtrack in the game is beautiful as well and it was eerie how certain songs really fit particular areas that Deacon was driving through on his bike.
Days Gone isn't a bad game at all, but it does suffer from an overextended story that could be reduced by a couple of hours if they had just cut out those two chapters that really do nothing for the story. There are some parts of the game that feel unfinished, and while I know Deacon was not really a good guy, I did like him because of Sam Witwer doing an amazing job bringing him to life. I'm glad I played it for myself and while it's not a perfect game, it's not completely terrible, and I did have fun playing it.
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| Deacon takes a ride through the forest. |
*Days Gone is available to play on the following platforms: Playstation 4, Microsoft Windows
