Days Gone

Days Gone is one of the most underrated games of recent years. And not only by players and critics, but also by the publisher itself, and this is extremely sad. Now I'll tell you why.

This game is, at first glance, a typical survival game in an open post-apocalyptic world. But it’s not entirely typical, because there are such unique mechanics as interaction with your motorcycle. Yes, precisely with a motorcycle, and not with some other type of transport. This is explained by the fact that the main character, whose name is Dick, is, in principle, a biker, and was one even before the end of the world, and all the other vehicles in the area have long since rotted, and now you can only collect loot and spare parts from them. By the way, the mechanics of transport looting are implemented here, not to say that it’s really interesting, but it’s unique. When there is a break-in, you can accidentally activate the alarm in your vehicle, and all the undead in the area come running to it.

Speaking of the undead:

They are ordinary zombies, but they are quite agile and can run, and in this game they are called “freaks”, that is, “freaks”. In general, they are quite standard for games and films about zombies, if only they could not form flocks or, more correctly, whole HORDES! When I first saw this, I thought that there was some kind of bug or something, but no, they can actually be found in numbers from a couple of dozen, up to several hundred. There are especially a lot of these bastards on the farm, there are 600+ of them, if I’m not mistaken. To fight such a scourge, you need to have a machine gun, Molotov cocktails, and preferably mines with some kind of rapid-fire shotgun. Really cool mechanics that you won't find in any other games.

But if there are few enemies and they are far from each other, then you can take a knife and cut their throat a little, or put a silencer on the pistol and give a “headshot” to the bastard.

There are a lot of weapons in the game, both small arms, which can still be improved for local money, and some melee weapons, which have a safety margin and can break.

The currency here is the ears of freaks, that is, after killing one of them, Dick cuts off his ear and can exchange it for weapon and motorcycle upgrades or consumables. Yes, the motorcycle here can also be improved and at the end of the game you can turn it into a beast.

The game also has an evasion system like in typical souls-likes, that is, with the help of rolls, and to do them you need stamina, which is spent during the rolls themselves or running.

You can pump up the character himself, or rather his skills: strength, endurance, health, or pump up some special perk: concentration when shooting, automatic dodging, finishing, etc.

In addition to freaks, you can also hunt animals: deer, wolves, bears, or rare infected wolves that have become much more cruel than their “living” relatives.

But of course, among the enemies there are also people: small groups of looters and bandits, and also sectarians who look like freaks, but know how to shoot and fight like people. And because of these sectarians, the hero’s friend (Boozer) loses his hand at the beginning of the game . And what’s most interesting is that these ghouls are led by Dick’s once good friend, but because of an idiotic prank on the part of the latter and Bukhai, their relationship, to put it mildly, has cooled.

The story here is quite interesting:

At the beginning of the apocalypse, the hero puts his wife on a helicopter, but due to its overload, he remains with Bukhar on the ground, and for two years, he is looking for his betrothed. And finally, having reached the point where she should be, he finds only a camp filled with the undead, and therefore decides that his soulmate has died. Throughout the passage, we will sometimes be shown flashbacks of the relationship between Dick and his wife. However, it later turns out that everything is fine with her and she creates some kind of “superweapon” in the camp, commanded by some colonel. But he is again forced to hide his relationship with her. In the end it turns out that the colonel is a sick bastard and he must be finished off, otherwise he threatens the entire state with some kind of bullshit.

And yes, throughout the game, we will sometimes go to the landing site of helicopters with members of the mysterious organization "NEMO" on board. We even start a business relationship with one of them, but after completing the main plot he will take off his helmet, and then we will see that this organization is no longer just powerful people, but some kind of superhumans, not freaks, but also not people. With "NEMO" I understood almost nothing, but that's okay.

Honestly speaking, the ending, unlike the story as a whole, is not very pretentious, all enemies are defeated, all friends are saved, traitors are punished, well, it’s just a children’s fairy tale. Even Boozer survived, who seemed to be about to explode with the truck, but no, he is alive, impressively waving his hook instead of a hand))

The graphics in the game are picturesque, the world is rather large and alive, the optimization is not so perfect, but we can say “almost”, the sound is cool, the design and voice acting of the characters are top notch!

Conclusion:

Days Gone is certainly not the best game in its genre, but it certainly didn’t deserve the fate of never seeing a sequel and being scolded. Of course, three thousand for it is a lot, I would even say a bit much, but damn, the developers tried.

I hope Sony will change their mind and let Bend create the second part.