E3 2017 Impressions — Days Gone

Days Gone

While at E3 I was able to see Days Gone in a more intimate setting than just a trailer. Here’s my take on Days Gone

Even thought the zombie crazy seems to have been taking its toll as of late, that isn’t going to stop Days Gone from coming and getting all of the well deserved hype that it has been since it was first shown to the world. Bend Studio made another huge splash out there with new gameplay this year at E3 as well as an interesting stage show that went along with it. If only we had a release date for Days Gone to hit the PS4 now, but beggars can’t be choosers. Thankfully, there was much more to see on the show floor besides the gameplay we had during the big media showcase.

Actually, in all fairness, in a behind doors showing of Days Gone we had a different take on the same mission that was highlighted during the bigger event. This time though there were other elements of the game shown off as well as a different tactic used to get to the same goal. If you missed out on the original gameplay from the showcase, have a look at it below. This way you can be a little familiar with the changes I will be bringing up and explain on how Days Gone may be a bit different than we all knew before.

So the demo for Days Gone started out pretty much the same. All up until we get the the part where Deacon stops to look at the first downed biker while on his hunt. In this demo the player used what looked like “survivor’s sense” from other games and was able to spot the ambush and other dangers from a bit away. This is where the more open world kicked off as they took a hidden path to sneak up and take everyone down without being hit in the neck with the rope. It also led to a far less cinematic fight scene, but it looked to be the easier of the fights in Days Gone due to all of the stealth.

The next big change up that was forced, in this case to show it off, was the dynamic weather system in Days Gone. In this play-through there was a lot more snow falling and the appearance of being colder. At first it just looked like a cool little extra bit of fluff to make the world feel “alive,” but as Bend Studio explained, it has more effects on things than just being snowfall. Obviously it limits both Deacon’s and the enemy’s ability to see which can make stealth in Days Gone a little easier, but it also had another big affect; it changed up the Zed that were active as well. The runners that can be seen above were not there to be used as they get frozen in the cold. Obviously this will change up how we attack things and make it a bit more fluid. Maybe that is just me though.

Another minor thing scene here for Days Gone was a bit more of the crafting system that they wanted to highlight. More or less it looks and functions like the system in The Last Of Us. Not a huge surprise here but they did put together some new crossbow bolts and Molotovs to be used in Days Gone and I couldn’t see much of a difference between the two games in terms of this system. Why fix something that was not broken at all and such, am I right?

I do have to say that it was a little disheartening to see that the scripted events of Days Gone are a bit forced no matter how you go though. In the above video you can see how Deacon gets the drop on the enemy with the hostage to have the scene play out. In the other demo I was shown, there was a point where we had one of the enemies sniper rifles and had a clear shot on the captor. There wasn’t the option to just kill them from a distance and call it a day. I get that they have story to tell in Days Gone but it would be nice to know why we couldn’t or shouldn’t take the shot on a lone enemy with a silenced weapon outside of “there’s a scene to play out.”

At the end of the day though, I am still excited to see more for Days Gone and hope that the release date isn’t far off. While it may seem like the zombie crazy should be about over, Bend Studio seems to have brought a bit of life back to it here in a great way. I’ll I ask is that we get good reasons for not being able to bypass certain events as mentioned. Little things like risking a hit on your ally would be nice, but this demo didn’t show that as the issue yet. Maybe it will be tweaked as we sit back and wait for the official release of the game.