Is Days Gone Any Good?

Days Gone is an action-survival adventure game developed by Bend Studio and was released back in 2019. The game follows former soldier, Deacon St. John, as he tries to survive in a cruel new world — an apocalyptic world now full of zombie-like creatures.

What are people saying?

Days Gone is a funny one when it comes to critical reception, as there are two noticeably distinctive camps; some think it is quite brilliant and others see it as a complete swing-and-a-miss. Official review scores upon release felt the game "overstretched and under delivered", but players were, in general, more forgiving; they were accepting of its flaws, including the odd bug and a bad story.

You can check out our review here.

Is it actually any good?

Well, let me start off by saying that Deacon St. John is awful. I understand the general consensus is that players like him; they find his gritty, no-nonsense (and arguably realistic) approach understandable, considering the circumstances. However, from a story-telling perspective, I feel that his attitude makes him a hard "protagonist" to love. Deacon is a man fuelled by self-interest, who has no qualms about hurting others for personal gain. This is an ingrained trait of the character, as it's shown that he could be just as nasty pre-apocalypse — in a time before he needed to be to survive.

The game neither depicts Deacon as good at heart nor as a man seeking redemption for past acts. He is just a terrible person, which ultimately makes it incredibly difficult to invest in him and enjoy his journey.

While we're at it, the character and overall story direction are generally quite poor. Not only does the story drag on for far too long in Days Gone, but the line between good and evil is so fuzzy that characters often blur into one another; the "bad guys" don't convey themselves as being any worse than Deacon. I appreciate developers trying new ideas, but on this occasion, I think that it just didn't work, and someone should have stepped in to correct this story's trajectory in the early days of pre-production.

Now that I have got all of that off of my chest, let's dig into why — from a mechanical standpoint — this is one of the best zombie games ever made. You could tell the team at Bend knew exactly what they wanted to do here in Days Gone. Everything fits  neatly together like a puzzle; there are no wasted pieces, leaving one well-connected complete product.

The Freakers and their integration into the world are perfect. They are diverse and present a variety of situations to overcome; whether you're face-to-face with a towering Breaker or you're running for your life from a ravenous horde. Human enemies are interesting too and help switch up the gameplay as and when they appear. Rather than defaulting to the same swarm-based attack patterns utilised by their undead brethren, human enemies deploy smarter tactics; they set traps, use firearms, and work in teams to bring down their enemies.

The unique motorbike-based travel method is also a brilliant design choice, allowing the players to quickly traverse the insanely large map present in Days Gone. A typical fast travel option is still available, but the joys of riding the bike ultimately force it into disuse; there's a colourful map just waiting to be explored and the speed of the bike is just right to encourage you to do so. Upgrade it, maintain it, and keep it topped up with fuel, and it'll prove itself a sturdy workhorse amongst zombie-ridden forests of Oregon, time and again.

At this point, I could go on for several more paragraphs regarding what the game got right, but as this isn't a review, I will refrain from doing so. Just know that there are great locations to scout, a plethora of weapons to collect, intriguing side missions to complete, and varied difficulty levels to tackle. The game is absolutely chock full of interesting takes on both the open-world and zombie-themed genres, and these are bundled together and delivered as a straightforward self-explanatory package.