Now Playing: Days Gone

I think the best way I can sum up my thoughts on Days Gone is that it’s a potentially great 30 hour game trapped in the body of a mediocre 60 hour one. If you’ve read my First Impressions post you’ll know that despite feeling the opening of the game was rather slow, I concluded by saying that ‘I don’t mind a slow burn as long as the game pays it off in the long run.’ Unfortunately, Days Gone doesn’t quite manage to do that.

Whereas some games really suck you in and make you want to keep playing every minute until you reach the end, Days Gone is the kind of game you might need to take regular breaks from playing, not because you don’t want to see it through, but because you need to take a rest from the relentless monotony.

The map is split into six separate regions, and although each region offers a varied locale to explore in terms of terrain, they do fall into the Ubisoft style ‘regional content’ system, whereby every region has the same pattern of side content and collectibles – marauder / ambush camps, Nero outposts / checkpoints, hordes and nests.

I’m sure you can argue that you can ignore the majority of this additional content and only focus on the main story missions. And if you do, maybe you can get through the game in 30 hours or less. But if you don’t explore the side content in Days Gone you’re going to miss out on a lot of pretty useful upgrades and crafting items – not to mention the importance of increasing your ‘trust’ level in each region to unlock new supplies and bike upgrades.

You’ll also miss out on what is by far the best aspect of Days Gone and one which, sadly, the game doesn’t really focus upon enough – fighting the hordes. There are only three main missions in which you’re forced to fight a horde and these come towards the very end of the game. The zombie stuff in Days Gone is the real highlight – the way the hordes move, coming at you like a relentless tide, forcing you to plan and prepare, using traps or the local environment to your advantage.

Taking on a horde and winning when things go to plan – and especially when they don’t – is exhilarating and exhausting. Fighting the hordes in Days Gone is brilliant. Unfortunately, aside from those three main missions, hordes are just considered another ‘side’ activity in the open world. This, to me, was a massive mistake. Instead, the game focuses on what is probably the weakest and worst aspect – fighting humans.

Days Gone really does focus on the wrong thing. It begins with Deacon searching for his wife and in contact with a group called Nero. Things move slowly as you work through a series of repetitive missions in which you stalk a Nero researcher and listen to their conversations. You do this about seven times before even Deacon gets sick of it and demands the plot continue.

But then Nero and Deacon’s wife kind of stop being the focus and instead the game shifts attention to a group of crazy cultists called the ‘Rippers’. Once you’re finished with them, it seems like the game might actually be turning its attention to dealing with the hordes and that maybe that will connect to what Nero are up to?

But . . . no. The focus then shifts onto another human group – the Militia – who Deacon initially works for, but ends up fighting against leading to an absolutely terrible final mission. For a game that really takes its time with its story, it ends in a way that’s incredibly abrupt and disjointed and leaves a lot unresolved. Nero just disappear out of the story entirely. The hordes you were talking about trying to stop just get forgotten.

Instead, the game decides that fighting humans is the most fun thing to do *insert Picard facepalm*. The bulk of the side content is fighting humans in marauder or ambush camps, and most of the main content is also fighting humans in the form of the Rippers or the Militia. There’s nothing clever or fun about fighting humans in Days Gone. There’s nothing terrible about it, either – Days Gone is a competent third person shooter. But it’s not really what the game should have been about.

If it wasn’t already clear, I’m really frustrated with Days Gone. I really like the world. I like crazy, shouty Deacon. I like the direction the game was going with Nero and the increasingly mutated freakers. I loved fighting the hordes and I’m going to keep playing Days Gone until I’ve destroyed them all. I liked upgrading and customising my ride. I liked exploring each of the regions to see what I could find.

But I really got sick of fighting humans. I got sick of the game dragging its heels and meandering along with a plot that ultimately, doesn’t really go anywhere. I got sick of the game forcing me through a series of repetitive missions just to advance the story. A perfect example is towards the end when you’re preparing to fight the Militia and then, for no real reason, you have to destroy three Militia camps in a row to advance.

It’s just the same mission, over and over again, no different to the other thirty human camps you’ve cleared – marauder, ripper, drifters, bandits – whatever, they’re all the same. It’s so . . . well, lazy, to be frank. And the game didn’t need it. It didn’t need those quests. They just bloat the game and drag out the experience.

Just like those irritating Nero quests where you roll from one bush to another so you can listen to a conversation. And if you get spotted, you’ve got to do it all over again from the top. It’s such a dull and repetitive way to advance the plot.

Here’s what Days Gone should have been about – fighting zombies. Working with Nero and the other human settlements to destroy the hordes. You can still have Deacon searching for his wife, giving him that personal stake within the story. Cut all the boring marauder / ambush camp nonsense. Cut the pointless and forgettable ‘bounty’ missions. Days Gone is at its best when it’s focused on survival – humans versus freakers.

Despite all my complaints, I do still like Days Gone, because the good stuff is good enough to outweigh the bad and the boring. And if you’re looking for a decent game to sink time into, Days Gone certainly has plenty of content to keep you busy.

But Days Gone is also one hell of a grind to get through and it ends in a way that just makes you sit back and say ‘seriously, is that it?’ It’s a real mixed experience and it’s frustrating to think about how much better the game could have been if it had focused upon the right things – if it hadn’t bloated itself with so much repetitive and boring content.

6/10