A Ride Of Your Life

Days Gone

byKenneth Ang (GameAxis)

Bend Studio’s latest is an open-world masterpiece for an impressive myriad of reasons, and one of them is that it really makes you think. I don’t mean tactical decision-making like a RTS game, although it does have its fair share of those. Rather, Days Gone makes you think about you. Open-ended moral questions like “What am I fighting for?” and “What would I have done?” will definitely pop into your head as you progress through the story.

Days Gone is set in the Pacific Northwest region of Oregon, USA, several years after a global pandemic. The virus killed off most of the world’s population, turning the remaining infected into cannibalistic, zombie-like creatures called Freakers.

You play as Deacon St. John, a former biker-turned-mercenary plying the roads with his best friend, Boozer. Scraping together a living as bounty hunters for the local survivor camps, they’ve managed to make ends meet without too much trouble for a few years.

While the first few sequences focus on providing context for Deacon’s situation, it also does a fantastic job of setting the stage for one of Days Gone‘s central themes: brotherhood. The bond between Deacon and Boozer is one of the most inspiring I’ve seen in any video game to date.

Before I continue, I know it’s only natural to compare Days Gone to The Last of Us, since both are roughly similar in setting and gameplay. But Days Gone is diff erent in one, very distinct way: perspective.

Simply put, The Last of Us aims to depict the darkness of a destroyed world. Days Gone leans to the opposite side of the spectrum. Essentially, it’s much more optimistic than The Last of Us.

There’s a lot to do in Days Gone apart from riding around and looking cool. Outside of the story quests, there are two aspects that make up Deacon’s livelihood. The first is bounty hunting. Targets are provided by Camp Leaders over the radio, but you’ll have to speak to them personally to start hunting. Completing a Bounty earns you Trust in that respective camp, unlocking new weapons and parts for purchase.

The second aspect involves Freakers. These missions often require Deacon to clear out infestations, and here only a Molotov will work; throw it at a nest’s entrance and watch the angry hive charging out.

Beneath the horror of a zombie apocalypse is a love story between Deacon and his wife Sarah.

Ranged combat is pretty straightforward, but melee combat is a bit more complex. Fortunately, it’s rather forgiving. Deacon has some invincibility time that lets you breathe for a few seconds, but you’ll need to earn it. Stealth kills count, and so does scoring a melee critical hit. If you have no choice but to engage in close quarters, I suggest going for one to two boot knife hits, rolling (R1) and repeating — that should handle the majority of fights.

Deacon’s skills cover three aspects: Melee, Ranged and Survival. The first two provide bonuses and little quirks to their respective categories, while Survival offers quality of life improvements. You can just add points based on your preferred playstyle, although I do recommend putting a point in the Focus ability under the Ranged tree.

When you’re not killing or looting, Deacon gets around on his trusty drifter bike. The Pacific Northwest is enormous, so fast-travelling to various checkpoints is often the most efficient way to get around. At least, it would seem so. In Days Gone, you actually need to have Deacon’s bike nearby, have enough fuel, and a cleared path between point A and B. Have a Freaker infestation site you missed? Tough luck, buddy — craft that Molotov and ride over.

I don’t appreciate that last requirement. After all, the whole point of fast travel is convenience, and if I have to clear out every single infestation en route to my destination, I might as well have made the trip manually to begin with. Granted, you only have to clear the sites once, but it can get annoying.

Days Gone, like most top-shelf games nowadays, puts plenty of effort in its environments. Did you know that Bend Studio actually scouted real-life locations in Oregon for inspiration? They’ve done a remarkable job of recreating that landscape in a post-apocalyptic setting, but what’s really praiseworthy is their dynamic weather system. Sunny days can change to torrential downpours or raging blizzards within seconds, and it isn’t merely aesthetic.

Weather positively shapes how you tactically approach missions. If it’s raining, a stealth approach might be more ideal than a head-on assault, and vice versa. Point being: it adds a fun, under-explored side of realism to the game that most people might not give it credit for.

Freakers aren’ the only threat in Days Gone. Bandits ravage the Pacific Northwest, though they’re fortunately pretty easy to handle.

The only human targets you need to be wary of are the National Emergency Response Organisation (NERO) agents. You might find that NERO resembles Resident Evil‘s Umbrella Corporation, and there are no prizes for guessing why. The organisation pops up here and there in the earlier parts of the game, but they play a bigger role as the story unfolds.

Freakers aren’t the only enemies you have to deal with in the game. There are human baddies too.

In summary, I guess you could say that Days Gone is not only an emotional rollercoaster, but a very solid one at that. I haven’t come across many games that can stick to its guns without collapsing the moment a wrench is thrown into the plot; it’s even rarer to see one that actually uses that wrench to bolster Read more at .com its character development. So, if you’re keen on a great story, look no further.

Objectively, Days Gone looks, plays and feels rather satisfying, to say the least. Dynamic weather systems that have tactical impacts, intuitive controls, and generally fluid gameplay make for a very engaging experience. Combat is smooth, isn’t overly punishing, and often rewards a player’s creativity. After all, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat (figuratively speaking).

On the other hand, juggling the various storylines, coupled with the somewhat ineffi cient fast-travel system, does generally slow you down. But Days Gone isn’t a title meant to be rushed under tight review deadlines, so enjoy that journey. Besides, having more storyline doesn’t just help flesh out the world, it makes for a more diverse experience too.