Days Gone, Hours Wasted
Days Gone Is an open world zombie survival game. You play as Deacon Saint John, a biker going around and helping people out post apocalypse. The story is really about Deacon, his past and his struggles. While the zombies in this game (known as freakers) are really just the backdrop. The main draw to this game was the horde mechanic, where hordes of zombies would roam the map. The horde sizes differ but they can be from about twenty five to hundreds. These can be daunting to take on but Deacon can take them out with the right kind of weapons and strategy. Other than dealing with the freakers, Deacon is doing quests for multiple settlements around Oregon (where the game takes place). When completing a job Deacon is rewarded credits for that specific settlement and their trust goes up as well. More trust means more things you can buy such as upgrades to your motorcycle. Speaking of your bike, you’re going to need to take real good care of it because it is your main method of transportation around this huge map. That means you have to keep running freakers over to a minimum because it really damages your bike especially early on in the game. You also have to care about fuel. There are gas cans and gas stations you can get fuel from around but they are usually next to zombies. It’s hard to just attract one freaker, these guys run in packs. If one sees you, you can guarantee it told its buddies and you’re going to have to deal with four or five. They might also attract a nearby horde so be careful.
Days Gone is a fairly long game. You’re going to be doing a lot of tedious quests to unlock the next part of the story. You’re going to be biking from one location just to talk to someone and another to capture an outpost from highwaymen, or cultists or freakers. People go missing from settlements all the time in this game and I feel like most of my time was spent trying to track them down. While there were interesting places on the map to explore it was hard to with the threat of the horde or even just if you stay in one spot for too long freakers will spawn. During the course of the campaign you will hit every inch of this map. There is always something to do, and Days Gone tracks your progress in an interesting way. It tracks the percentage of completed quests for a particular faction. There are no chapters just what percent of this character’s quest you did. Which was interesting, but I struggled trying to figure out how far I was in the game. When you beat the game’s main campaign more quests are added so it feels like you are never really done.
This might be the 60 hours talking but I eventually grew to like Deacon Saint John as a character. He is just an everyman, a nice guy in a cruel world. That could be seen as boring but Sam Witwer really did a good job making me care about Deeks plight. Since this game is so Deacon focused, you’re really going to need to like him. This game is very long and you are going to be spending a lot of time with him. Overall, the game is a little too long in my opinion but there is a lot of content if you enjoy it and Deacon. Riding a motorcycle around post apocalyptic Oregon is really cool and the hordes provide a challenge. The game drags near the end and you may roll your eyes at certain quests and dialogue but I think Days Gone is a good game.
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