Days Gone Review

Legacy Review

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Days Gone takes place roughly two years after a cataclysmic event involving a virus infecting most of the human population, turning them into flesh hungry monsters known as Freakers. You play as Deacon St. John, a man from a motorcycle gang, The Mongrels, before everything went down. He and his best friend, Boozer, a fellow MC member, travel the area as Drifters. Meaning they don’t want to tie themselves down into any of the camps of people and would rather depend on themselves.

Deacon has spent his time since the incident trying to cope with the loss of his wife, hoping against hope she may still be alive somewhere. Most of his time is spent reminiscing and helping some camps for credits so he can purchase guns and bike parts to survive the wilderness. The jobs range from taking out dangerous groups of bandits or hunting down specific people who have done the camp wrong by murdering and/or stealing.

There are various camps throughout the game, each with their own ideals and specialties so to speak. Every camp will repair your bike, sell gas and give you somewhere to sleep after that some will only sell guns or only sell bike parts or nothing at all. Each camp has its own set of credits that do not transfer to other camps, so you have to do a lot of work to get everything every camp has to offer.

Gameplay wise the game felt like it had a lot to manage in the beginning. I could only save when I was near a bed or my bike, which is kind of a pain but bearable. What I really had a problem with was making sure I kept enough fuel in the bike to get around and having to scavenge everywhere I went so I would have enough materials to repair my stuff and make various weapons. It’s a real nightmare when you crash your bike and don’t have enough scraps to get it up and running again. Trying to drive the motorcycle with a mouse and keyboard was dam near impossible, thankfully I could keep a controller plugged in and swap when I started to drive. With all the work to play the game I was seriously contemplating quitting the game altogether. But the story kept changing my mind and pulling me back until I was completely hooked and couldn’t put it down.

But days gone has so much more to offer than just a great story. There are plenty of collectibles to find and areas to clean up. Various Nero checkpoints litter the land. When you find one you have to clean out the local enemies and get the power running. After that you usually get a bed, some materials and a special item that will permanently buff Deacon in some aspect. There is also bandit camps you can take out for a bunker to sleep in and a new fast travel point.

And that brings us to Freakers, the scourge of the land constantly hunting for food, that being humans or animals, whatever they can get their claws into. Basically, a Freaker is what we would commonly call a zombie. They come in many shapes and sizes throughout the game, in small groups or giant hordes. It felt like as the game progressed, larger groups were showing up out of nowhere and more commonly to really shake things up. With most freaker types, one on one was no problem, though they could easily overwhelm in a heartbeat… Besides freakers you have your human enemies, bandits, marauders, drifters, and even some cultists each one of them ready to murder you and take your stuff.

For the story alone I would give this game a high rating, and even the mechanics that annoyed me in the start just became second nature and didn’t bother me anymore. The game is long and big, able to take up a large chunk of your time if you wanted to complete the whole thing. There are plenty of side stories to pick up if you feel like taking a break from the main game, all of which would reward you with a new paint job for your bike, or maybe even a new weapon so they are worth your time. All in all I would have to throw this game up into my Top Shelf and definitely recommend this to friends and family. Alright, now that I’m done with that, on to the next one, see ya there.