There are a lot of open-world games these days. However many studios make them, they all seem to follow a very specific design philosophy: packing a giant world to the gills with things to do in hopes of maintaining “30 seconds of fun” for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours. It’s a tall order even for the biggest modern studios, especially if you actually hope to make every collectible, sidequest, and achievement worth pursuing.
Or you could just strip all that away likeDays Gone. On paper, Bend Studio’s open-world zombie survival shooter sounds like the most pedestrian open-world sandbox. Many questioned why Sony even greenlit the project given the existence ofThe Last Of Usas their marquee horror series. It’s not until you get Days Gone in your hands that you start to understand that Bend’s latest IP is more thanThe Walking Deadon a bike.
There’s a number of surprisingly great aspects to Days Gone. Deacon St. John has an actual reason to seek redemption as a person, undergoing the sort of growth you’d only see in a multi-volume comic book or series of novels. The immense ‘freaker’ hordes that fight like a surging organism. Yet these aspects alone aren’t wholly unique to Days Gone these, err, days. Instead, what sticks out all these years later is the subtlest part of all.
Days Gone is quiet. Really quiet. However intense its moments of action may be, Bend actually understands the value of silence, and lets you justexistin their world. Your bike is mighty fast, sure, but it requires fuel and maintenance. If you’re careless with it, or fall prey to a bandit trap, then you might find yourself walking miles to find the resources to restore it.
RELATED:The Last of Us' Winter Chapter Remains Naughty Dog’s Greatest Triumph
Whether imperiled or just exploring, Days Gone wants you to appreciate its sandbox as a living space. Sometimes a Freaker horde is migrating through - and while there’s the temptation to take them on, you’ll likely meet your first horde well before you’re equipped to actually fight it. So, you’re able to just sit and wait or, if it’s the right time of day or dynamic weather is in effect, you could try and slip past under a rainy downpour.
Every opponent you face is like this. Circumstances matter, both for you and whatever you come up against. Something as simple as the geography of an area can turn you from predator to prey. Just barreling through and completing the sparsely spread out sidequests is a great way to get yourself into trouble. So, you slow down, take it in, and find the tracks off the main roads.
Days Gone isn’t a world about becoming the biggest badass in all of Washington. It’s about restoring the world, little by little, to something better than it currently is. The entire narrative doesn’t climax with Deacon uttering some astounding one-liner, but by bringing together all the survivors against a common enemy that would see them all die.
Every threat in the game is a hateful, short-sighted, self-serving threat. Each enemy is violently cruel. The chaos is spawned like an eruption of mayhem. Deacon isn’t interested in hurting the innocent or ambushing people. When you aren’t fighting to survive, Days Gone is downright peaceful; gorgeous lakes, reclaimed towns, and idle radio chatter greet you. It feels likethe indie game Lakeon a much bigger scale.
You get to know everyone in each camp as they mill about their lives. Learning the routes across the extensive map rewards you far more often with speed and safety, rather than a forced experience point payout. Deacon’s best upgrades actually tend to come from the far corners of the map, necessitating you to tread fresh trails. They’re punctuated by hazards, be they navigational or the risk of alerting nearby enemies.
This is arguably what makes Days Gone so well paced despite boasting well over 80 hours of gameplay. You don’t spend all those hours shooting or finding a ludicrous assortment of feathers - the majority of your time is spent inhabiting the world from the seat of your bike, or on foot.
The further in you get, the more conversations Deacon has on the radio and in camps. NPCs will recognize you better the longer you play. They aren’t spouting all-despairing platitudes about the world either - they’re just people surviving and learning how to live in this new world. There’s an impressive number of ways for the world to express itself other than just making things go “boom!”
Being a modern lone ranger might make you a great gun for hire, but all this breathing room reminds you that Deacon’s more than an assortment of guns (which, again, isn’t an easy thing to put on the back of the game box). Regardless, not every game is designed to encourage thoughtful contemplation between its high notes. Nowhere is all of this better represented than in an early questline involving the grave of Deacon’s deceased wife, Sarah.
Her grave isn’t the site of some epic battle. Going to see it is out of your way, and briefly involves slipping past some Freakers. Yet these moments where Deacon sits down with his wife’s memorial are crucial. It’s how he talks to her and processes the plot. We get an intimate look into where his head is at. As the story evolves and shocking revelations arise, these little conversations show how far Deacon’s come.
In so many ways, Days Gone harnesses its breathing room marvelously. For all that it does right, this understated aspect might be one of its best. It’s something I miss whenever I dive into more traditional open-world games. Engagement isn’t about bombarding the player with something new every ten seconds. With every gentler moment, Days Gone hits harder when it needs to, leaving you yearning for more.
Y’know, like a sequel.Hint hint, nudge nudge.
