Completing missions builds trust within these communities, which in turn unlocks better gear, a reward I find much more compelling than the idea of helping each camp’s one-note characters. Instead of getting to the bottom of these questions, most communities prefer to send me crisscrossing the gorgeous Oregon countryside and rolling mountains of Days Gone’s open world on my motorcycle as I hunt down bounties, recruit survivors, and raze entire camps of raiders. Everyone seems pretty willing to accept things as they are.ĭays Gone sometimes seems remarkably sparse, while other times I found it almost intolerably bloated No one I meet is in a rush to destroy the masses of Freakers that roam the state, and it takes around 24 hours of playtime before a character exhibits curiosity about what caused the outbreak in the first place. Oddly enough, no one seems too worried about catching the virus it if they’ve already survived. This is no small feat, as the area has been overtaken by self-mutilating raider cults and the Freakers themselves, rumored to be transformed by some sort of infection. A lack of exposition leaves the fate of the rest of the world, the country, and even the remaining states in the Pacific Northwest a big, unanswered question mark.ĭeacon and Boozer find work as “Drifters” two years after the incident, doing mercenary work and odd jobs for the surviving communities. All they find is a Freaker infestation and a crashed helicopter his wife is presumed dead.Ī cutscene sets a precedent for the rest of the game, focusing on the after effects of the apocalypse only as they relate to a chunk of rural Oregon. After securing his wife a seat on a helicopter headed out, he travels with his fellow gang member and friend Boozer to a nearby refugee camp. John, a veteran and local biker gang member whose scruffy appearance and hardened-yet-winsome persona reminds me of at least half a dozen other video game protagonists. Emergency response personnel in hazmat suits yell about an evacuation.Īmid the scramble to escape is Deacon St. I see people running frantically away from the feral, herd-like masses of Freakers. Screams echo through a small Oregon town. The zombies that weren’tĮverything’s already halfway to hell in the game’s opening cutscenes.
Its massive, but repetitive scope renders even those aspects I initially found entertaining a chore. While Days Gone horde mechanics show a pulse, the rest of the game feels lifeless. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but maybe we’re the walking dead? Think about it. Turns out the world after a definitely not-zombie apocalypse still gives me deja vu with the familiar themes of “why survive if you can barely live” and “mankind is the true monster we have to fear.” While Days Gone reveals its “Freakers” are actually infected, mutated humans instead of the undead, their mindless shuffling and groaning could have fooled me. What zombie stories are left to tell in 2019?
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