Days Gone is missing the key to a great zombie game

The zombie game genre is a popular and competitive landscape and Days Gone - with its rushed set up and decidedly linear gameplay - just doesn’t cut it. But there’s one fatal flaw that really lets it down.

Zombies make for a popular genre in video games. Next to face-devouring aliens, they’re the easiest foe for us to mow-down in large quantities and conscience-free.

Plus, the whole ‘deadly pandemic’ scenario is one we can actually envision as something that’s not entirely impossible.

Imagining how we’d survive in a world with a societal collapse, limited resources and in the case of Days Gone — “freakers” around every corner.

Yes, in this iteration of the trope, the zombies are less the “shuffling undead” type, and more of the “crazed rage virus” ilk.

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The game setup in Days Gone feels incredibly tired.

You play a biker gang member by the name of Deacon, separated from his injured wife with no way of knowing if she is still alive. It’s a set-up that feels instantly tired to me.

A rough-around-the-edges bad-boy antihero, longing and speculation about the token ‘missing wife’, tattoos, motorbikes and the open road.

The game rushes you through the set-up, maybe aware of its own unoriginality and not wanting to dwell on it for too long.

From there, you set out on your bike, only to have it shot-up by a rival gang-member and forced to search for parts to repair it.

It’s common for games to take you through a kind-of tutorial sequence early on where you learn the basic mechanics of the game. But for something that describes itself as “open world”, it’s decidedly linear.

You’re funnelled through very specific areas and pulled back if you set even one foot (or wheel) outside of the very narrow mission zone.

Further still, you’re bounced between gameplay and cut-scene almost incessantly, which is infuriating.

Every time I get to take control of Deacon, it’s instantly taken away from me once again as all the cool moments are played-out in a pre-rendered animation.

You just don’t care about the protagonist enough in Days Gone.

The game looks good, there’s wonderful detail to the environments and textures — as a world it feels like a lot of work has gone into making it feel real and dangerous, despite its reclaimed natural beauty.

But a consequence of this is that you are at times forced into pointless slow-walking, more cut-scenes and other devices commonly used to cover loading.

I understand from a mechanical perspective this is necessary, but I’ve also seen how well this can be implemented in clever ways to make it feel like part of the experience, almost unnoticeable. That’s definitely not the case here and I struggled to stay engaged.

Forgive me for labouring on story and characters, but in a game about survival — you want to care about the protagonist or there’s no point to any of it. Am I alone in this?

A rushed scene at the start depicting my injured spouse being whisked away in a helicopter was not enough to endear me to Deacon.

He does play the vigilante, punishing those who punish others — but he also seems to be caught up in drug disputes and other bikey-type concerns that make him a tough character to care about.

I don’t know anything about his wife but maybe wherever she is she’s better of without him.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this. It’s a zombie game, Steph — just focus on the freaking zombies!

Well. Interactions with freakers has been well-implemented, I’m pleased to report.

They’re suitably scary and unpredictable. You can try to sneak past them, surprise them, or just run-in guns-ablazin’ — often in my travels I’d accidentally set-off car alarms sending groups of them sprinting towards me.

I played this on normal difficulty and in the early stages of the game it seemed pretty easy to stay on top of things.

Days Gone looks good, adding wonderful detail to the environments and textures of the game.

Resources are reasonably plentiful if you take the time to scavenge. Health depletes quickly but you can make a ton of cure-all bandages to keep yourself patched up — it’s just about putting some distance between yourself and the horde.

Likewise, I found ammo to be more than easy to find for a survival game — perhaps this will change as you get further along.

Melee weapons are good for clearing up-close attackers — but you’ll feel confident replying on guns in most other situations.

Days Gone is fine, I felt underwhelmed by it but it’s certainly entertaining if you’re a fan of the genre and love zombie-slaying in any capacity.

On the flip side, I find this area of video games to be quite competitive because there are so many great games to choose from in this category.

This is cool if you’re keen to live out your fantasy of a whole story based on Daryl from The Walking Dead — but for me? Every moment I spent playing this I couldn’t help but think about how perfect and spectacular The Last Of Us is and how desperate I am to play its upcoming sequel. This just felt like a poorly-executed facsimile.

The reality is, games have evolved and matured, and the standard for even the humble zombie-slaying action romp has been considerably lifted.

This just didn’t excite me in the way others in this genre have. It felt superficial. I know, I know! It’s a ZOMBIE game, and I’m talking about superficiality?!

But is it not something to celebrate that the calibre has been so lifted that one can find such depth in the humble zombie? I say, yes. Or rather … “Braaaaaaains!”