Post-apocalyptic action game

Days Gone is an action game developed by Sony’s SIE Bend Studio, the brains behind the Syphon Filter series. The game takes you to a zombie-filled location in the rural Pacific Northwest, where you will fight the undead to survive. You will play Deacon St. John or Deek. Deek has just lost his wife, Sarah, and is now living as a rootless biker. Together with a fellow biker named Boozer, you will take on various missions and survive the post-apocalyptic world.

What is the game all about?

The central gameplay of Days Gone is easy to follow. You will take on missions, drive to specific locations and shoot the zombies. Every task completed will open up the map and reward you with cash to buy better weapons and motorbike upgrades. You can also improve your skills, such as gun handling, fighting, and foraging. In between missions, you can explore the land, pick up side quests, or raid bandit camps. Moreover, you can hunt animals for meat and skins that you can trade with the community.

However, there is more to the story once you dig deeper. It is not only about survival. Aside from completing missions, there is also Deacon’s quest to find out what happened to Sarah, the various human factions, and the reason behind the zombie infection. There is even a hint of government conspiracy in the storyline. The game has different story threads that you can explore. Unfortunately, the hidden stories are the only interesting thing about the Days Gone. The entire cast—aside from Deacon—is forgettable.

The game also does not offer much respite, gameplay-wise. At its core, it is a standard third-person game where everyone seems to need something. There are lots of shootouts with a few forced stealth missions. While there is nothing wrong with that, there is nothing here that you cannot experience in other games. In fact, if you are a fan of Far Cry 5, you will find everything familiar. 

Painfully generic

Overall, Days Gone is an action-adventure game that you’ve seen before. It offers the same tale of mankind’s struggles to recreate society that zombie survivals often have. It feels bloated with lots of meandering storylines, repetitive missions, and forgettable characters. It is not bad, just boring. Some fine-tuning and editing—to remove the unnecessary and tedium parts—and this game can be unique and interesting.