Initial Thoughts - Days Gone (Playstation 4)

I've been trying to find time to write this post for weeks...but I've been so drawn into this game that I've had a hard time putting down the controller and pulling up the blog. 

Days Gone is an action/adventure horror survival type game which also is a Playstation 4 exclusive. Like a lot of AAA titles, I was late coming to this game, purchasing it early in 2020 once the price dropped to $20. So far, this has been money well spent.

I'll be honest, going into this game I knew very little. All I knew is that it was supposed to be a big PS4 exclusive and it was now cheap. I knew it was open world and that appealed to me. Coming off playing Horizon Zero Dawn, this game felt very natural to me. The visuals were beautiful and the story was intriguing, two positive checks on my list.

At the time of this post I've made my way through the majority of the game...like I said, I've hard a hard time putting down the controller so I could write this. I've enjoyed the game so much however that I just had put my thoughts on "paper".

You play as Deacon St. John (love the name by the way), a former motorcycle gang/military guy, stuck in rural Oregon during the end of days. Something has happened to the world's population and now these mutated creatures prowl the earth. Known as freakers, these ugly creatures remind me a little of the monsters from the movie The Descent. They prefer darkness so at night they are numerous and during the day the majority of them "hibernate" inside caves and other small/dark places.

The game opens however with some cutscenes that give you just a small piece of the story. Deacon, his girlfriend, Sarah and your best friend, Boozer, are trying to escape from a city (Portland?). Sarah is injured and placed on a helicopter used by the NERO organization. She is flown to safety while you and Boozer try to escape the overrun city. The story is only given to you in bits and pieces and you eventually find out that the camp Sarah was flown too was overrun by freakers and she died. Much of the early story is Deacon trying to come to grips with this and overcoming his own bereavement.

It's not that often that I fall in love with a game so quickly. Usually I have to put in several hours before I know if this is something I want to put a lot of time into. Time is precious and I'm a man of many hobbies so if I'm going to sink a lot of time into a game it has to be really good. Days Gone is that for me.

I love the idea of a zombie like post apocalyptic story/setting...reminds me a lot of the Walking Dead. The varied settings really help keep the game interesting. I'm currently in the southern portion of the world map and wow, what a difference it makes from the first half of the game. 

I'm enjoying the gun play and other weapons, especially as I'm unlocking better and better items. Riding a motorcycle has never been more fun. Sometimes I just enjoy riding around and doing whatever I want to versus taking on one of the many missions in the game. My youngest daughter would rather watch gameplay than play games (most of the time) and even though the language can be salty and the game can be violent, I've put the TV on mute and let her watch when I'm not doing story based missions. 

I've run into a few issues with the game thus far, but nothing that has made me want to stop playing. I'm anxiously awaiting to finish off the story and hopefully getting more answers to my questions as I've started to become attached and sympathetic to many of the characters. I'll leave it at this. If you like open world type games and or horror survival, at $20 you really can't go wrong. I'll be back with a "Final Thoughts" post after I'm done with the game...whenever that may be.