Days Gone review

The hero

Zombie video games always feature an interesting narrative dichotomy. In a zombie movie, monsters are the real stars – humans are just the unfortunate victims we watch as they are munched on as the movie progresses.

But you can’t have a video game without a protagonist. Days Gone gives us Deacon St. John, a biker and a member of a gang with a military background. After his wife’s apparent death, he uses all of his experience (and every weapon he can find) to confront the hordes of enemies.

To put it simply, Deacon is not a very compelling character. It looks like it was designed by a committee. He’s a member of a motorcycle gang, and he gives us some Sons of anarchy vibrations. And his motorcycle trip to increasingly remote communities emanates a strong “Daryl from The walking dead” power. Finally, his whole “scruffy veteran” part of him channels all the protagonists of SyFy’s monster movies, all in one character.

The committee behind Days Gone probably wanted to create a strong blend of these archetypes in Deacon. Unfortunately, this is a character that I can only describe as a “strong bland”.

The bads

A hero is nothing without the bad guys. So who is Deacon St. John fighting in Days Gone?

In general, your main enemies are the zombie-like Freakers. In true video game fashion, there are a wide variety of these guys with different powers and abilities. And in true zombie apocalypse fashion, you have to face dangerous human enemies from time to time.

The final enemy is nature itself. Most of your gameplay involves traveling to the middle of nowhere. Along the way, you’ll have to fight things like bears, wolves, and cougars.

On the bright side, Days Gone is a beautiful game. We may be in the final days of PlayStation 4, but developers like SIE Bend Studio have learned how to get the most out of this engine. And the graphics enhance the setting – it’s really cool to see the Pacific Northwest realized in this kind of open world setting.