Hi there! For the past month or so I have been playing Days Gone, an open world game made by Bend Studio, of Syphon Filter and Uncharted: Golden Abyss fame.
The first time I have seen this game, it was in an E3 demo, showcasing Freaker (totally not zombies) hordes and their behaviour when interacting with the player character, and I fell in love with the concept. Fast forward a bit and everyone trashes the game, hates on the protagonist and generally dislike it. About a month ago I bought it for 15 GBP (although I live in Romania, the UK store has more options and better pricing in general).
I'll attempt not to spoil the story of this game, but I will give a few details relating to the first hour of the game so you can follow me. Our protagonist, Deacon St. John and his friend Boozer, are the last two members of a biker gang called The Mongrels, surviving the zombie postapocalypse and the less than savory bandits and marauders which stalk the world of the game. After a cult called Rest in Peace burns Boozer's arm with a blowtorch, the first half of the game has Deacon scraping by and gathering resources to help his friend.
The story in this first half is meandering, having Deacon torn apart by the high number of things he has to deal with. He has to run errands for a few different camps to afford living and also a piece of the old world and his old life starts taking a noticeable toll on him. This scattershot approach of the first few chapters kinda makes everything that happens a blur, everything except Boozer's and Deacon's relationship, which if intended, is kinda brilliant.
There is a turning point nearing the middle of the game, where Boozer and Deacon settle down in a camp for a bit and then the story moves its focus towards Deacon's past and him dealing with it. The story overall focuses on survival and hope, having the characters go through hard times, impossible decisions, only for a glimmer of hope, like a bit of electricity or hot water or even a new home, albeit temporary.
Deacon himself is written really well, he is angry at the world because it took almost everything from him. The man also has trust issues, which is appropriate seeing there are lots of people who revel in others' suffering in this world, but also seems to have went a bit insane, as he often mumbles to himself when he encounters marauders, belligerently swinging insults related to them, but also screaming at the top of his lungs what he thinks of a radio transmission after hearing it. Still, with all that, he still is a good person inside, agreeing to help people and deeply caring about them, even if he doesn't want to outwardly show it. In fewer words, he is a flawed human being in unenviable conditions.
The themes of survival and hope are also held up in the gameplay department, having all your melee weapons break down, the gun suppresors are made out of oil filters and you have to crack open the hoods of abandoned cars and hoping you find one and they also break down, a gunfight generates noise and that noise can attract a nearby Freaker horde, engulfing everyone and everything. Of course, you could use noise to your advantage, like taking out an entire marauder camp using a horde and then wiping out the thinned out but still dangerous tide of Freakers.
Then, there is the bike, your closes friend on your travels. You slowly build it up from scratch by doing jobs for different camps to unlock parts for it and you also have to always glance at the fuel gauge and plan your travels in such a way that you don't run out, because you'll be stuck in the wilderness. Add to that the fact that you have to take care not to hit stuff with it or take jumps and not have your tires aligned with the ground, because these things wear it down, and you will have to repair it, if you have the materials to do so. At first, the bike is slow and can't travel very far without a refill, but in time you can comfortably do a lap of the map on it, letting you explore more and more of the world. This game features a very Ubisoft styled open world, but there isn't an abundance of objectives scattered all over so you don't see the map, rather, they are clumped together naturally. For example, let's say that a town features a concentration of Freaker nests to burn down and nearby, there is a horde, wandering mindlessly, so you'll have to be careful or you will have to try to run away, because you came unprepared.
All in all, I know everything I wrote is really vague, but this is a consequence of me not willing to spoil the story events of the game, but believe me, everything in the story has a reason to be there, even if at first you can't see where the game is going with said aspect. I hope I convinced you to give this game a try, or at least watch someone play it. In the end, I'll leave you with some music from the game:
Images: cover, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
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