I’ve been playing a lot of Day’s Gone recently.
Running around, fighting Zombies…
“They’re not Zombies, they’re Freakers.”
Ok, fighting “Freakers,” upgrading my bike and watching an initially distant and
cold protagonist slowly develop into someone with whom I can relate.
You know, the typical Sony Exclusive gaming experience.
Now, for the most part, I’m enjoying it.
However, I can’t help but feel as though something here is just…
Off…
If you’ve played the game you’ve probably felt this too; it’s hard to explain.
Basically the game feels like a hodgepodge of 3 different things.
Namely: 1.
An open world game based in exploration of said world.
2.
A linear narrative title.
3.
And a survival shooter.
The problem is that Day’s Gone doesn’t do any of these three well, especially when
compared to other games that have released in the last year and a half.
In this video I’m going to show you concrete examples of how and why Day’s Gone has fallen
short and why it fails at almost everything that it tries to accomplish.
Furthermore, I’m going to give you one simple change that would have fixed almost all of
its problems because I’m a quality content creator who doesn’t just say inflammatory
things for clicks.
“The kettle is call the pot black.”
So yes, that’s right, I’m going to put on my best Dr. Phil hat…
Oh wait, he doesn’t wear hats…
I’m going to put on my best Dr Phil stache and we’re gunna get cracking.
DISCLAIMER (So people aren’t mad at me) Now I feel as though I should stress, I still
enjoy Day’s Gone.
I would say it feels like a really awesome game from 2015.
If it launched back then, it would be in the running for Game of the Year.
I honestly believe that.
The problem is, it’s not 2015, and we’ve come to expect a lot more from the games we
play.
Titles such as God of War, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3, all of these have raised
the bar as to what we should expect from a full priced AAA game.
Simply, you can have fun playing Day’s Gone, but that doesn’t mean that it’s without
major problems and furthermore that those issues are immune to criticism.
So while I go through all of the beefs I have with Sony Bend’s latest title, bear in mind
that I do enjoy it and have had a good time playing it over the last few weeks, but I
still feel the need to dissect what exactly is going on here.
It’s like your first serious girlfriend in high school: you really like her, enjoy
spending time with her, but you should still make it clear that you have a problem with
her being a professional &*^%$. ACT 1 (Zombies ≠ Freakers)
Days Gone is a bit of an enigma.
It’s a Zombie-, I mean Freaker game that feels as though it is at a cross roads of
identity; a mid-life crisis of game development.
For this reason, it feels a lot like The Saboteur to me.
If you didn’t play that game, don’t worry, you share that with most people.
It was a game that tried to mix GTA IV with Assassins Creed and put it into a WW2 setting
with a pretty unique art style.
Actually, when I say that out loud, it sounds pretty cool…
The problem being that it didn’t do anything well.
It tried to do too much.
It tried to have a free-running system like Assassins Creed with a discount stealth system
and a broad array vehicles that was meant to mimic that of GTA IV.
The driving sucks, the shooting is pathetic, and the free running wouldn’t even make
Michael Scott proud.
“PARCOUR!”
It’s really too bad, because at the core of both Day’s Gone AND The Saboteur, there’s
an enjoyable experience, I might even say: a good game.
But they both fall victim to this trap: the trap of thinking that a game can only be super
successful if it does anything and everything.
Effectively, if it’s everything to everybody.
This is why Days Gone has crafting, motorcycles, hordes of Zombies- Freakers, heavy cinematics,
survival mechanics, the list goes on and one.
This assumption that they’ve made simply isn’t true.
In fact, the opposite is often true.
The Last of Us is incredible because it tells a story that isn’t particularly amazing,
in an amazing and effective way.
The gun-play isn’t revolutionary, the traversal and puzzles are all pretty simple, but the
narrative is fantastic.
And what’s more, Naughty Dog knew that and made the narrative the focus with everything
else being put in place to reinforce and support what they saw as their flag ship feature.
But this point is somewhat extraneous.
Let’s get into the specifics of how and why Day’s Gone feels mediocre in 2019.
ACT 2 (Specifics, no really) One of the key selling points of this game
was that it was going to put the player in the middle of a Zombie- DAMNIT I said it again,
this is so stupid!
They’re Zombies I don’t care what anyone says—they put you in the middle of a FREAKER
apocalypse and give you a motorcycle to navigate its vast expanses.
Furthermore, Bend Studios put in place a ton of survival game mechanics to make the game
feel more gritty, according the game’s director, John Garvin.
Its open world is large, but completely relies on its dynamic “Freaker-System” to make
the world feel alive.
Afterall, the element of dynamism is crucial to making a world feel living and real.
If my actions don’t have consequences beyond what is taking place in scripted sequences,
I’m going to subconsciously separate from the world and lose interest.
It will cease to be another world and morph into a sandbox within which I’m very much
aware I’m playing.
If you’ve played Days Gone, however, you’ll know that its world ends up feeling very stale
and uninspired.
The reason is that the Freaker System is just about the only dynamic thing here besides
the weather.
This is a MAJOR problem, especially when you consider that the game was sold on the idea
that the possibilities were endless.
Think I’m exaggerating, look at this: it’s a quote from an interview that the game’s
Director and Writer, John Garvin, gave to EDGE magazine:
All the systems come into play in a way that makes predictability impossible, and that’s
what makes the gameplay experience awesome.
The permutations, how many different kinds of things that can happen, are just astronomical.
This is just plain wrong.
I’m not saying that our old pal John is lying, but it’s pretty clear once you play
the game that this is simply not how the game plays.
I suppose it is possible for the game to have a bunch of dynamic systems that all are working
in tandem, but counterintuitively, that does not mean that the gameplay experience will
be dynamic.
Think about a river with a ton of different smaller streams pouring into it, all at different
intensities, speeds, and volumes.
Each stream has an element of unpredictability (or dynamism), but the flow of the river is
going to remain somewhat constant.
This can be argued by what of what is known as Chaos Theory because the river’s contributing
streams are all what we would call: a complex adaptive system.
But all of this is way too meta for a video on a fairly bland video game.
Point being, having dynamic systems does not mean the gameplay will be dynamic.
GTA V may have a bunch of dynamic systems all working in tandem, but the actual gameplay
experience that most players will have will be identical and predictable.
So is this a problem?
Only insofar as the game was developed, designed and balanced by people who thought they were
building something that they weren’t.
I can’t stress this enough, other than the Freakers, everything in Days Gone is painfully
predictable.
The writing, the line delivery, the fade to black before EVERY SINGLE CUT SCENE, everything.
The item placement, conversations, quests/missions, even the plants are all static.
For instance, I needed some birch wood for my crossbow’s arrows and was having a hell
of a time finding birch trees or wood anywhere.
I was running around on foot in the middle of the night trying to find some and spent
a solid 30 minutes finding enough for 10 arrows.
I then returned to my early game base and realized, hey, there’s 4 of these tree/bush/things
sitting right outside the gate, good to know, I’ll come back for them when I’m desperate.
I later did that very thing but when I returned the next occasion, all the trees were back.
So I cut them down again.
And they were back the next day.
They were statically placed and would predictably respawn, totally removing the frantic search
mechanic that I thought was in place.
Now, I just went and returned to that spot whenever I need that resource.
And this is also true of all of the other resources too that are used in crafting that
seem to dynamically generate in the world.
Gas cannisters, wood, flowers, everything is perfectly predictable and can be found
after respawning a day or two later.
Again, this isn’t inherently a bad thing.
But what you were selling your game on the fact that its world is so vastly dynamic it
certainly doesn’t help matters.
Let’s discuss that narrative for a moment.
Probably my favorite part of Days Gone is the story it’s trying to tell.
And I use the word trying very intentionally.
Beyond the myriad of technical issues that plague the narrative’s presentation (such
as constant fade to blacks, slow load times which kill the tension and delivery of many
scenes, extreme pop-in even during dialogue sequences, and many more), beyond these the
story is actually pretty heartbreaking.
It’s all about a man who is trying to hold himself together in a dark and unforgiving
world, and once he has a sliver of hope he starts to change and gains a new lease on
life.
It really is endearing.
But once again, because of the game’s lack of focus it never blows you away with any
given scene or sequence.
Like in the Last of Us, there are many iconic scenes in that game, but in Days Gone they
never achieve anything remarkably unique or haunting.
Not every game has to be TLOU, but it is good to aspire to be like that of the greats, and
given the familiar subject matter, it seems to me a fair comparison.
Days Gone also has a couple of scenes that you can tell the writers were really proud
of; which is good.
And you might be asking, how do I know they were really proud?
Because they show the same scene 3 freaking times in the span of 5 hours.
They were probably supposed to be quick flashbacks meant to remind the player of Deacon’s motivations
but for 1) players aren’t stupid and can remember things that happened less than 5
gameplay hours earlier, and 2) the load times are so egregious that these quick flashbacks
turn into a 3-5 minute diatribe rehashing something we’ve already seen which actually
decreases its narrative potency, instead of increasing it which was likely their goal.
All of this can be easily summed up by saying that Days Gone doesn’t do anything well.
I literally can’t think of anything that the game does better than another game.
It has a discount story, budget gameplay, and thrift-store quality tech.
It’s just not good at anything.
ACT 3 (So what?)
Now, we’ve done a fair bit of comparing and contrasting in this video.
Looking at Day’s Gone next to another title that found major commercial success.
And so, I feel I should state that I’d prefer it if we could just look at Day’s Gone as
a standalone title, irrespective of other studios’ work, but I don’t think it’s
fair to do that.
Specifically, if we look at what Sony Santa Monica did with God of War or what Rockstar
did with Red Dead Redemption 2, both of which are $60 games mind you, it seems to me highly
naïve to look at these in a vacuum.
The reality is that these games have set trends and standards, and that’s a good thing.
The fact that Red Dead’s world feels so alive is good because it means that’s what
players will expect from $60 Open World AAA titles moving forward.
This is how we make progress and how the industry moves forward.
But this also means that when a game comes along that places itself in the same category
as Red Dead by way of its pricing, we have to call out its short comings in contrast.
Afterall, if I’m selling a car for $240,000, you’re going to expect a lot, as you should.
You’re going to compare it to other cars of similar price points, like a Mercedes S65.
If my car is basically a Ford Pinto, you’re going to be pissed if you bought it because
the market has established a certain qualitative standard for items of that price point.
Days Gone, whether it likes it or not, is in the same price tier as Red Dead Redemption
2, God of War, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and even upcoming games such as Cyberpunk
2077 and The Last of Us: Part 2.
This means that the game not just will be, but should be compared to these, the best
in the business.
If Days Gone were being sold for $50 I wouldn’t be making a lot of these complaints.
But it isn’t, it’s being sold to players as a main-line AAA title, and in that regard
it simply falls short.
So many things in this game just reinforce the idea that this development team was pretty
inexperienced when it came to AAA grade open world games with engaging narratives.
With that in mind, I actually think Days Gone is even more impressive, but it doesn’t
change the fact that these problems exist.
You can go see a short film that was filmed by college students and it can be really impressive
for the budget and experience level of the participants, but if there are major issues
with the editing, acting, or writing, it doesn’t do anyone any good to ignore them just because
you want to be nice to the inexperienced party.
Now, all of these criticisms and critiques, at least in my eyes, would be pointless if
I were unable to provide a solution.
And to me, the solution to most of Days Gone’s problems is quite simple: eliminate one of
the three thematic goals that I outlined at the start of the video.
Only pursue two of the three.
If you want to make an open world narrative game, great, just forego the survivalist elements.
You want to make an open world survival game?
Great, just drop the hamfisted narrative.
Pick your battles.
Choose what you want to do really really well, and be the best at it, instead of trying to
do everything.
It didn’t work for Assassin’s Creed Unity, it didn’t work for The Saboteur, and it
won’t work for a “Freaker-Game.”
Despite all of this however, I’ve still had fun with Days Gone.
I still feel as though it’s very outdated and more of a proof of concept than a full
fledged release.
Specifically, when I play Days Gone I’m not as much in love with Days Gone but rather
with the knowledge that the sequel will be able to tackle all of the problems that are
so apparent here, and deal with them in a timely manner.
Beyond that, I also hope that they learn to become more focused and be the best in one
or two elements of their game, as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody.
Days Gone is fun, but it fell very short.
Thank you all for watching, honestly and truly it means the world to me.
If you liked the video, consider hitting the like button and subscribing for more.
I love you all, and I’ll see you in the next video.