Days Gone director blames poor reception on ‘woke’ critics

The director for the PS4-exclusive Days Gone has blamed the game’s poor reception on “woke” reviewers, as well as bugs and technical issues

John Garvin, the director and writer of PlayStation 4 exclusive game Days Gone, has claimed that the game was poorly received because of “woke” reviewers.

In a now-deleted tweet, Garvin claimed that the game failing to meet sales expectations and reviewing somewhat poorly was because of three reasons. The first was that the game “had tech issues like bugs, streaming and frame rate”, something that a number of critics and fans noted at the time.

The other two reasons are a little less believable – Garvin claims that reviewers “couldn’t be bothered to actually play the game”, and that “woke reviewers … couldn’t handle a gruff white biker looking at his date’s a**”, referring to an infamous scene from the game.

Days Gone was criticised upon release for being another zombie game in a landscape of similar games. Picture Sony Interactive Entertainment

Those last two reasons might seem a little bit at odds with each other, given that reviewers wouldn’t be able to make a judgment on the game’s treatment of women if they hadn’t played it. Either way you look at it, Garvin definitely seems to think that the critics are the issue.

He further doubled down on this in the replies, saying that “if a reviewer objects to a character because of identity politics, I call that woke”. As noted by VGC, many in the replies pointed out that Read Dead Redemption 2, which released a few months prior to Days Gone, received glowing reviews, despite also featuring a gruff, white protagonist and multiple instances of sexism and racism in its storytelling.

Days Gone is an open world zombie action adventure game that was developed by Bend Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It had a heavy focus on US motorcycle culture, and featured a story set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies.

A sequel to Days Gone was reportedly pitched by Bend Studio, but was turned down by Sony. Picture: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Reviewers at the time criticised the game for its “bland” storytelling, repetition of gameplay, and for not doing anything particularly new. Despite that, the game went on to sell more than all of Bend Studio’s previous games combined, and received an aggregate score of 71/100 on review score aggregator site Metacritic.

Garvin isn’t the only one riling up people on Twitter lately, EA had to apologise for “rude” tweets, after its official Need for Speed account offended some fans. EA apologised for the account “crossing the line” when it called a fan a “milkshake brain”.

In other EA news, the upcoming Dragon Age 4 got a new teaser, hinting at a mysterious and controversial character. The game, officially titled Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, will reportedly enter full production in February, and is a direct sequel to Dragon Age Inquisition.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.