‘Days Gone’ mutates into ‘freaker’ fun
Post-apocalyptic game builds a bigger sandbox
Fans of “The Walking Dead” will likely relish “Days Gone,” the video game thriller out Friday for Sony PlayStation 4.
The post-apocalyptic premise is similar: Your character has survived a global pandemic, while millions have died or turned into ferocious predatory humanoids.
If you’ve only seen the game depicted in TV commercials, at first glance you might be excused for considering these creatures as cousins of those “Walking Dead” zombies. But no, these beasts are transformed humans called “Freakers.”
“Days Gone” creative director and writer John Garvin explains: “What we have done here is actually create something that is new. It’s a creature type. They are not really mutants, they are certainly not demons or aliens or robots. They are not zombies either. They are their own thing.”
Players will encounter multiple types of freakers – including horrific migratory swarms of them – as they explore beyond the game’s initial setting of the Pacific Northwest, two years after the virus hits.
“They have their own patterns. You can weaponize them, too,” Garvin said. “You could find a small swarm, drag them into an ambush camp and let them do a lot of the fighting for you. It’s a fun sandbox to play in and they are mutating constantly.”
The dangers in “Days Gone” ($59.99up, rated Mature for ages 17-up) make for a challenging adventure – and one permeated by a sense of dread similar to “The Walking Dead” and another touchstone: Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning post-apocalyptic novel “The Road.”
Freakers aren’t the only fear-inducing concerns for your character, Deacon St. John, who, along with his fellow former motorcycle gang member “Boozer,” is eking out an existence.
Other human gangs of survivors have designs on what limited resources can be found. Wolves and bears may attack you, too. “The open world is literally alive with these creatures. They respond to the weather and type of day,” Garvin said.
Another underlying factor: Deacon’s past does not weigh gentle on his mind. At the start of the game, you see Deacon put his wife Sarah on a departing chopper. She is wounded and needs medical treatment and there’s only room for two on the aircraft. Deacon opts to stay and help Boozer fight through the viruscaused cacophony.
“Two years later it is still eating away at him. That is definitely one of the things we explore … you put a character in a place where they have to make a really hard choice and then they have to live with the consequences,” said Garvin, who along with the other principals at Bend Studio, worked on the “Syphon Filter” series of games for Playstation systems, as well as “Resistance Retribution” and “Uncharted: Golden Abyss,” for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita systems, respectively.
The search for Sarah is just one aspect of the past that Deacon deals with. His past in a motorcycle gang emerges as a factor, too.
But those issues often take a back seat to minute-by-minute survival. As you play, you must strategically plan ahead to stay alive. You must craft arrows for your crossbow and you have limited ammunition for firearms. Molotov cocktails come in handy. It’s fun riding your motorcycle through the expansive and well-constructed world. (Keep it in good shape as it’s essential.)
Players can play through the main story in about 30 hours and complete another 30 hours of additional missions, depending on their desires.
So far, the game has gotten generally mixed reviews and a Metacritic rating of 72. And there’s some thought that “Days Gone” could become a PlayStation franchise like the “Uncharted” series or “The Last of Us,” which has a sequel in the works. The team at Bend Studio in Oregon have spent about three years on the game.
“It’s messy and confused, but peppered with genuinely thrilling encounters with rampaging hordes of zombies and occasionally breathless firefights,” writes editor Lucy O’Brien on IGN.com.
A flashback scene has gotten some criticism for what some considered sexist dialogue. At Sarah and Deacon’s wedding, she agrees to marriage “but only if you promise to ride me as much as you ride your bike.” Others said the phrase is a nod to FX TV series “Sons of Anarchy,” which Garvin says was a favorite of his.
In the days ahead, we will see how video game lovers respond.