On the surface, Days Gone looks like simply another tale of zombie survival that draws upon the aesthetics of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. It’s gritty, the protagonist looks grizzled and the world bleak – there’s even an air of leafy midwestern America in there to really drive the similarities home. But Days Gone is its own beast. Developed by SIE Bend Studio, Days Gone is an ambitious open-world survival title drawing more from the book of The Walking Dead than Naughty Dog’s hit.
Little is known about Days Gone besides its E3 2016 reveal and PS4 Pro technological showcase. Thankfully, I’ve trawled the net to find anything I can about Days Gone and what you can expect from it when it releases later this year. Expect more information to drop at this year’s E3 in June, too.
Days Gone: Everything you need to know
Does Days Gone have a 2017 release date?
Sony and SIE Bend Studio haven’t yet revealed a release date for Days Gone. It’s believed that it will arrive at the end of this year, in time for the holiday season, but don’t be surprised if that slips into 2018.
What’s Days Gone all about?
Very little is known about what Days Gone is actually about. It’s an open-world tale of survival, sure, but we don’t know why the drifter you play as, Deacon St John, is risking his life on the road. We also don’t know what’s driving him to deal with the hordes of “Freakers” (Days Gone’s name for the infected masses) rather than shack up somewhere safe.
It’s also unclear what happened to turn people into rabid monsters stalking America. I’m sure that will all be revealed in due time, though.
What do you do in Days Gone?
Because Days Gone takes place in an open-world environment, its gameplay is reasonably open-ended. You can tackle a situation in any way you please, and the world behaviour changes depending on what time of day it is.
For instance, during the day Freakers are far weaker and less likely to travel in huge packs or be too much of a threat. At night, however, huge hordes are a frequent occurrence and the shufflers are faster and more powerful than in the daytime.
These aren’t small hordes we’re talking about, either: in Days Gone SIE Bend has gone all out. The swarms shown at E3 2016 depicted hundreds of Freakers swarming St John, surrounding buildings and encampments just to get at him. This does always look as if you risk being stuck in insurmountable situations, but it also opens up the potential for some interesting, puzzle-like thinking to escape the Freaker masses.
SIE Bend also revealed that there will be vehicles available to you to traverse the vast gameplay area. We haven’t seen much of these vehicles in action yet, but Freakers are apparently drawn to the noise of passing cars and bikes, so you’ll have to be careful when driving anywhere.