With Days Gone, first-party PlayStation developer Sony Bend Studio was given its first real shot at an original IP and AAA game since the Syphon Filter series on PlayStation 2. Despite releasing to mixed reviews from critics, Days Gone has become a beloved game in the eyes of the audience, building a substantially strong following among PlayStation's hardcore fan base. Sony has never officially released Days Gone sales figures but it sold reasonably well given it was the best-selling PlayStation Store exclusive and ranked on the NPD top 20 best-selling games of the year for 2019 in the US.
There has been no word about a potential Days Gone sequel on PS5 from either Sony or Bend Studio and it's not likely there'll be one anytime time but all signs seem to point in that direction - particularly when Bend Studio just released a PS5 update for Days Gone, adding support for 60 FPS and 4K resolution. For Days Gone 2 to surpass the original both critically and commercially and make the IP a household name for the PlayStation brand, Bend Studio must double down on what made the game unique: Hordes, government conspiracy, and the supernatural.
Hordes Are Days Gone's Biggest Hook
Often described as Sons of Anarchy meets The Walking Dead, Days Gone felt like a relatively standard open-world zombie game, meaning that for everything it did right, it didn't exactly push either genre forward. Where Days Gone truly started to shine came in the form of Hordes, an endgame activity where large groups of Freakers would roam the open-world as a single collective pack and took strategy and a lot of firepower to take down. In the pre-release marketing for Days Gone, it came across as just another zombie game only with more enemies on screen, struggling to translate the exhilarating feeling of turning a corner to find a Horde roaming in the wild or the stress of running out of ammo as they close in from all sides.
Days Gone was one of those games that did most thing well enough but nothing great; jack of all trades but master of none. From issues with performance to numerous bugs, bland side-characters and villains, and mediocre gunplay, Days Gone 2 on PS5 needs to tighten the core experience and focus on what it does well and what makes it unique. While Days Gone doesn't need to go the direction of the Dead Rising series, Bend Studio should double down on the concept of Hordes and utilize the power of the PS5 to give players something they've never experienced before. Not to mention, the ending of Days Gone set up new threats that could make next-gen Hordes even more terrifying that the first time the Saw Mill Horde attacks.
Conspiracy and the Supernatural Side of Days Gone
Warning: MAJOR STORY SPOILERS ahead for the ending of Days Gone. Throughout the main story, players learn that two years prior, a virus spread across the globe killing millions of people and turning millions more into violent, ravenous zombie-like creatures called Freakers. It's later revealed the virus was created in a lab by NERO and that the virus (and Freakers) is evolving, making the creatures stronger, faster, and harder to stop. At the end of the game, Deacon St. John is contacted by NERO scientist O'Brian one last time who reveals that NERO have always known about the virus ability to mutate, that he has been infected with a strain that make him an intelligent Freaker, and that NERO are coming.
What began as a story about a biker searching for his presumed dead wife in an apocalypse soon became a mystery thriller about an outbreak that was created and covered up by the government. Deacon spends a decent amount of time in the campaign helping O'Brian research the Freakers, and slowly bigger threats and the idea of mutation comes into play. By the end of the game, NERO is behind everything, they're coming to Oregon presumably to wage some sort of war, and the virus is now at a level where anyone can become infected and turn into a human/freaker hybrid super soldier. Super soldier Freakers could be going a little too far into wacky territory but learning more about NERO's plans and them coming in as a potential new threat to fight on top of Freakers, new evolutions of the virus (like Bloaters from The Last of Us) and bandits could make the story of Days Gone 2 very interesting.
Big World Full of Smaller, Intimate Stories
Sequels often focus on being bigger and better than the original and most of the time, that ends up with an entry that forgot what made the original beloved in the first place. Days Gone hinted at a much larger world and set up some exciting story threads for a sequel to explore, which is why the idea of a government coverup, scientific experiments, and the virus evolving into something supernatural and out of control is a smart direction for the team to explore. But it's characters that drive narrative and Days Gone 2 needs to prioritize those smaller, more intimate stories and relationships if it wants players to become invested. There's a reason why shows like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones became so successful or why The Last of Us Part 2 won Game of the Year.
Earlier in the month, it was announced that Bend Studio lost two of its creative leads and industry veterans, Jeff Ross and John Garvin. Ross served as Game Director on Days Gone and as a designer on Syphon Filter, Resistance, and more, while Garvin was the writer and creative director for Days Gone and Syphon Filter. For better or worse, Bend Studio is now in the position to give a voice to new creative leads and foster the next-generation of the studio, and that could be just what Days Gone 2 needs in order to reach its full potential.
Days Gone is available now on PlayStation 4.