Days Gone

I’m not sure if it was because I haven’t played a open world third person shooter this year or what but this game really hooked me. My very low expectations might have helped too since the game itself is quite good. Another factor makes this a more enjoyable open world game too but I’ll go over that in a bit. First let’s learn a bit about uh another world in chaos.

Deacon St. John is a very stereotypical biker. He cares about two things: his motorcycle and his wife. One of those things is now missing in the world after doomsday. Freakers now infect the world and now his life is just running bounty hunter jobs for any camps that still remain. What humanity remains in him and others seems limited at best. Leading to a world full of tragedy. Time will tell if that will ever change.

Upfront the game does a good job of introducing the players to what you’ll be doing for the rest of the game. Doing an assortment of missions for people while running into other random things along the way. A simple focus that works so well because of the layout of everything. Being led into something new all the time made me finish most of the things in this game. Sure what I was doing wasn’t drastically different but I still enjoyed doing it.

Each side event is mixed between a few different things. Clearing out hostile enemy camps is the simplest one of them all. That in turn fills out the map a bit and lets you see all the near by Nero stations. They end up being mostly about stealth and taking out the loud speakers that would lead a bunch of freakers toward the player otherwise. Afterward a health/stamina/focus upgrade is earned. Additionally bounty Missions usually end up being about tracking down a person that might be in a few different situations. Might need to chase them on the bike or use Deacon’s tracking skills to find them. Mixed in with all this side stuff the main story is told via a ton of different missions. The variety of people you meet and how Deacon decides to help them is the main way the story plays out. Makes it feel a little meandering sometimes but I liked how it played out most of the time.

All of this is presented in a pretty small area. As the game goes on it does get a bit bigger but for the most of it I found myself just doing something because it was so close. I’m so used to a bunch of traveling in open world games it was nice to just get somewhere quick. Doesn’t hurt that they make the bike riding feel good. When it’s the only vehicle in the game so they sure did make it work very well.

The overall storyline is fine but it is very predictable. I ended up predicting the ending half way through the game by accident. But it is told well. Pretty much the weakest link overall since the gameplay ended up being my favorite part. I was bad at doing it but using the assortment of craft able tools is pretty key to making some tougher fights easier. I ended up just shooting everything at some point though since it did get rather repetitive after a while. Even if I didn’t end up doing just about everything the way the storyline gets padded out is a bit much.

Still overall I really enjoyed my time playing this game. Been a while since I just wanted to keep paying something after a marathon session. Unsure why that is since this seems like a fairly run of the mill video game. Just the right time and place I guess. If you want a more focused open world game I think you’ll end up liking this one.