Games for PC & Console

Days Gone Review: Exclusive Title with Weaknesses

As bikers against all rotten humanity in the form of zombies. Days Gone was one of the most anticipated titles for PlayStation 4, and we’ll be battling the masses of undead in Farewell, and we’ll have to face a different set of dangers as well. Our bike is always with us.

Farewell in the state of Oregon, USA, the duration of the pandemic can be clearly seen. All facilities and houses are run down and everywhere the so-called freaks swarm. The survivors have united and are fighting for the last resources. You are on your way as Deacon St. John and do all sorts of jobs for the big camps in the area.

More than just pretty

Days Gone is optimized for PS4 Pro, where it also supports 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range – of course only if you have the right TV set. But we play the game on the normal PlayStation 4, where the game looks just as photorealistic, especially the woods are elaborate and real. But also the dead cities and villages are well brought in, because they seem really extinguished. All houses are barricaded, shops are looted and there are only a few petrol stations with petrol left. Due to the dynamic weather as well as the change of day and night one is really in a depressing world.

The open game world allows you to get off your bike at any time without having to worry about searching for resources all the time. So you can start and complete the main and side missions as you wish. To progress further in the story, you should always pay attention to the radio messages and keep an eye on the map. There’s always something to do.

Days Gone - Standard Edition inkl. Steelbook (Amaz
This product is currently unavailable.

Plays simply

The controls in Days Gone are more than simple. Interactions are only triggered by a single keystroke and even Quick-Time events can be confirmed with a single keystroke. Crafting objects is just as easy. Via L1 you can access the production menu and with R1 you can produce the desired item when you have all the materials together.

Days Gone is played from the third person’s point of view, so you always look over the protagonist’s shoulder. To eliminate your enemies, members of an enemy gang or freak, you have all sorts of possibilities. You have a considerable arsenal of weapons at your side, consisting of secondary, primary and special weapons. You didn’t want to attract too much attention? If you sneak up on an opponent from behind, you can quietly turn him off.

It gets nerve-wracking as soon as you fight a horde. Not reluctantly they consist of more than 100 freaks and they all attack you at the same time. Most of the time you don’t have enough ammo with you to just shoot them down. If you see a horde and want to get it out of the world, then you should look at the environment and use it to your advantage. Even with so many opponents on one pile, the game still runs smoothly.

What do you do in Days Gone?

Right at the beginning it is made clear what Deacon is all about. We won’t tell you too much, of course, except that the main story is about 30 hours of employment, depending on how detailed you complete the missions.

You’ll have a lot of fun with the missions at the beginning. Otherwise you will get tired of them quickly, because they are often the same. Drive to a certain place and wipe out a camp there or just investigate something. We are not offered much variety. But there is enough to make you want more in between.

In order to increase your reputation and buy better equipment, you can do some secondary activities. Besides hunting for freakers (and collecting freaker trophies) you can also go hunting for animals to get meat. Hunting also involves reading clues to find the animals when you have wounded them. If that’s too boring for you, you can pick mushrooms.

Through the cutscenes the story is told even more realistically and we feel connected with Deacon and his comrade Boozer. This is even more effective, since game graphics and nothing extra pretty is used. If you want you can also change the voice output and show subtitles, but the German dubbing is very well done.

Despite exclusivity, it works better

It is an exclusive title, thus developed exclusively for the PlayStation 4. Considering the relatively long development period, one could speculate that a flawless game will come onto the market. Days Gone also convinces in gameplay and graphics, but there are a few shortcomings.

Apart from testing on the PlayStation 4 (not Pro), we were already prepared for jerkers and longer loading times. The loading time when starting the game was really a bit longer. But there were only a few jerkers when we drove into a new area. Logically, the graphics must be reloaded, then the game jerks a little.

Clipping errors are more disturbing. So we fell through the ground more than once and died or couldn’t climb over a wall and were mauled by the freaks. If you sit down on the bike and push forward, the bikes will move even though the bike is not moving at all.

The AI could have been made a bit smarter by the developer. Especially the “human” opponents are not the smartest. They quickly forget the position you’re in. Or they need so much time to aim, that you can just run towards them to bludgeon them down.

For missions in a limited area in the open game world, the mission area is very quickly exhausted. If there are too many steps outside, the whole progress will be reset. A certain freedom of action would have to be assumed, especially in an “Open World”.

Conclusion on Days Gone

Driving through Farewell as Deacon St. John and competing against masses of freaks is more than just fun. Fighting the hordes in particular has a tactical component that you wouldn’t expect in a survival game.

Days Gone is not only fun to play. Due to the Unreal Engine 4 the game also works well. Atmospherically, we feel like we’re being transported into the pandemic, we don’t just hear that, we also see that.

Although Days Gone is designed exclusively for PlayStation 4, it’s not free of flaws. There are corners and edges here and there, at which surely also screwing is done. With patches everything can be straightened out somehow.

So we can recommend the game, especially if the developer improves it.

Pro
Contra
Story
95%
+ thrilling story… – …,but nothing new
Gameplay
90%
+ tactical battles against hordes
+ playable in several ways
– same mission sequence over and over again
Balance
85%
+ Ammunition is rare – at the beginning you have to pay a lot of attention to the fuel
Controlling
95%
+ simple and understandable
+ quickly learnt, also for beginners
Graphic & Sound
90%
+ designed with great attention to detail
+ works convincingly
– sometimes muddy graphics
Days Gone - Standard Edition inkl. Steelbook (Amaz
This product is currently unavailable.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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