Revisiting Days Gone: Does it Deserve a Sequel?

days gone has proven to be one of the most divisive games in PlayStation's catalog after receiving mixed reception at launch the game did have good commercial success selling over 8 million copies despite this PlayStation did not greenl the sequel angering days gon's loyal fans in today's video I'll be looking back at the development reveal and release of days gone as well as revisiting the game myself to determine if it deserves a sequel days gone was developed by Bend Studio One of the Lesser known PlayStation first party teams Bend began working with Sony all the way back in 1999 when they developed siphon filter for the PlayStation 1 siphon filter was a huge success becoming one of PlayStation's first major franchises Sony officially purchased Ben in 2000 and Ben continued making siphon filter games all the way up until 2007 now in 2006 Ben started developing siphon filter games for the PlayStation Portable and they did a really good job turning what had been a Home console game into a portable game clearly Sony liked what they saw because for the next several years Ben became the go-to studio anytime one of PlayStation's IPS needed to make the switch from Home console to Portable Bend went on to make resistance retribution for the PSP and Uncharted golden Abyss for the PlayStation vaita both games were very well received with Bend masterfully transitioning what had been a console experience to Portable while still respecting the iconic IPS that they were working with but bend would never make another portable game after Uncharted due to the failure of the PS Vita Sony moved away from handheld gaming which I think left bend in a bit of a weird spot they had really found their groove with the portable stuff but that wasn't something they could do anymore so they got to work on their next game and it took quite a while after the release of uncharted golden Abyss we heard nothing from Bend for years and I feel like this is more common nowadays with Studios being a little more reserved with what they're working on and also games in general just taking so much longer to make but back in 2012 it was pretty rare to just hear nothing from a studio for years at a time over the next several years fans and media pondered about what could possibly be going on over there after nearly 4 years of radio silence we finally heard from Bend at E3 2016 where they revealed what they had been working on watching this reveal trailer back now after playing the game I can piece together a lot of what they were going for and I can appreciate this trailer a lot more but at the time I remember feeling kind of let down by this reveal and a lot of my disappointment had nothing to do with days gone itself there were so many factors at play here I think number one and most important of all was just the general zombie fatigue consumers were feeling around 2016 late 2000s and 2010s were riddled with zombies there are almost too many zombie games from this era to count whether it be left for dead cod zombies Dead Island Dead Rising Dying Light it felt like everywhere you looked zombies were there and at the very same time zombies took over other forms of media as well TV had the walking dead and I zombie movies had Zombie Land and World War Z even Books and Comics weren't safe from the zombie takeover by 2016 I think consumers had just started to hit their limit with zombie intake because despite many of those zombie game shows and movies actually being great it was just becoming a bit exhausting so to see days gone another zombie game it was just a little deflating for me personally and it also didn't help that Sony had just released another new zombie IP with the last of us a few years prior again none of this is the fault of days gone but it's just how I felt at the time they followed up the reveal trailer with a 10-minute gameplay showcase it begins with the main character Deacon walking around and looting an abandoned area suddenly he's faced with a giant horde of zombies for the next 6 minutes Deacon fights off this horde shooting at them running from them traversing the area surrounding him and using anything he can find to fend them off none of this was cinematics it was all real gameplay and from a purely technical standpoint it was astounding there were hundreds of zombies on screen at a time all of the zombies looked detailed and unique to each other this horde of zombies mechanic would become the primary focus of days gon's marketing which I feel was a mistake but I'll get to that later Impressions did seem generally positive from this E3 showcase there were some people like me who weren't jazzed about a zombie game but at the end of the day that's completely subjective however in December of that same year PlayStation announced The Last of Us Part Two at PlayStation experience 2016 and I think this really hurt days gone we just got done talking about zombie fatigue and now Sony announced another one now I kind of feel weird calling The Last of Us just a zombie game it's obviously so much more than that and I mean part two is barely even about the zombies but the last of us is a post-apocalyptic game at its core and so at the time as someone who isn't a big zombie fan it kind of sucked knowing that two of Sony's major first-party teams were making games in a similar genre and I think a lot of the people who did actually still like zombies now found themselves caring more about the Last of Us Part Two instead of days gone and considering The Last of Us Part Two did not even release until 2020 I think Sony would have been much better off waiting to reveal part two until after days gone had been released it's pretty frustrating to me that they marketed these games at the same time because it took so much attention off day gone when it didn't have to over the next several years days gone continued getting new trailers and gameplay showcases all of which showing off fairly similar things Deacon would ride around on his bike they would show off some brutality and then a horde of zombies would appear I felt like we weren't learning a ton about this world or these characters which is kind of a big problem especially for a new IP now I completely understand why they prioritized these zombie ho sequences in the marketing it was extremely impressive and with the recently released PS4 Pro I think Sony was a little anxious to flex their muscles but I don't feel that this painted a good picture of the game we get to this more when I talk about the game itself but Degan is actually a fairly complex character and his entire story is based around love but you would never know that from any of the marketing they did of this game you would just think he's some generic biker that shoots zombie hordes I think the marketing of this game hurt it so much and made it seem like something that it really isn't days gone was finally released on April 26th 2019 nearly 8 years since Ben's last game and unfortunately the initial reception was not great on Metacritic the game sits at a 71 which is incredibly low for a Playstation first party game those usually never drop below an 80 now I know Metacritic isn't perfect but it's the best way I can illustrate this point the reviewers felt the game was somewhat Bland and Bloated many felt it didn't stack up to what we had come to expect from PlayStation first party games but the biggest complaint by far was the technical issues the game would crash constantly you would fall through the map frame rate was inconsistent and there were also some gameplay concerns such as aiming not feeling quite right unless you messed with the settings these are the kinds of things that led to the lower than expected review scores and no doubt turned away a lot of people from buying the game at launch however Ben spent a lot of time working on these issues many of which were actually fixed by the day one patch as time went on the game reached a much more stable State and right around that same time the game began getting discounted the game was heavily discounted pretty quickly by November 2019 just 7 months after the game had been released the retail price was lowered to just $40 and on top of that the game was frequently discounted all the way down to even $20 this is when many people myself included picked up the game and gave it a chance my first time playing days gone was in July 2020 and I got about 10 hours in before putting it down that was a while ago so while I don't remember everything I do remember a few things for one as I alluded to earlier earlier I ended up liking Deacon a lot more than I thought I would he's a much deeper character than the trailers L on he's not just a faceless biker he has a lot of interpersonal conflict throughout this story that's something I didn't expect coming in and it really pleasantly surprised me as for the gameplay I don't remember disliking it rather just feeling very indifferent to it it felt like pretty much any other open world game I had played without giving me much reason to stick with this one specifically and with the game having such a long run time it was hard for me to see it all the way through I also do remember some technical things getting in the way so I've decided to go back for this video to see if this second chance can give me a better experience because for every person who hates this game there's just as many people who love it so there's clearly something here and I hope that playing it on PS5 via backwards compatibility may help too so what did I think after revisiting days gone my return to Days Gone was a bit of a mixed bag the experience was better than I remembered with the PS5 upgrade helping significantly this game is so impressive graphically and with the help of the PS5 it also now holds a steady 60fps low times are faster too and with so many patches over the years that have addressed bugs the technical issues are a complete thing of the past once again I immediately found myself connecting with the main character Deacon I just like that Deacon is not perfect you can feel that he is human he's real you can tell he's uncomfortable trying to be the Savior and he doesn't always have the answers but he has to play Hero I think that's a really cool contrast to what we get from most video games where the main character goes from a seemingly normal person to a hero at the snap of a finger and Deacon's character is helped by the great performance of his voice actor Sam whitward unfortunately I feel like some of the other performances in the game don't quite match up to wiw's level and at times the writing can be questionable the thing that bothered me the most with the writing is how often you get Radio Calls other characters are constantly calling you for New Missions you can barely drive for 30 seconds without someone else calling you for something in this case a character called me and told me to wait for his queue that same character then called me back no more than 5 seconds later saying to start the mission this much constant talking just gets super annoying and draining and it doesn't help that the characters are always screaming for some reason during this I guess it's supposed to be them trying to talk over the sound of a motorcycle which makes sense but it's also very tiring sometimes I just wish they would let me explore for a bit without constantly being screamed at with a new task this is how they chose to move the story along and I get it but it just would have been nice to have some time to breathe every once in a while and overall the story in general just feels slow and that is because of the very poor pacing in days gone the pacing was one of my largest complaints the first time I played days gone and sadly I found myself feeling the exact same way now it's just a very slow-moving game with so many different missions and storylines happening it can feel kind of overwhelming and because the game is so long it can sometimes make the story feel stagnant with things just not moving along quick enough after the 10 hours I had played back in 2020 I felt like I had barely even started started the game and I have heard people say days gone gets really good after you get past the slow start I can respect having to get through a slow start for 2 or 3 hours but 10 plus hours is a bit egregious overall it just feels like the game could have been 10 or 15 hours shorter and not much would have been lost as for the game play it worked for me I did definitely feel like the aiming was a bit off at times however it didn't hinder my experience significantly it just took some getting used to being able to use your motorcycle to get around the open world is not only convenient but also really fun and the player having to pay attention to things like bike damage and gasoline is a nice touch as well adding a survival element to the game the hordes are just as incredible as I looked in the trailer and how I remembered them from my first playthrough it is genuinely thrilling and heart pumping trying to fight off these hordes and these sections look and play exactly as they did in all the marketing which I have to give them huge credit for so I'll be honest I still haven't finished days gone because that would take me another 20 hours that I just simply don't have right now but I did play the game for multiple hours a day as I Revisited it and ultimately I found myself feeling disappointed disappointed because I haven't come away with much of a conclusion I can't say that I hated my time with the game but I can't say I fell in love with it either it felt like a very middle-of the road open world game which is exactly how I felt about it the first time I played it I've enjoyed plenty of open World Games over the years and I'm a huge fan of everything PlayStation so it's rare for me to feel this way about one of their games and honestly I've been struggling to put into words what it is about days gone that just doesn't work for me as I think about it more I think most of it comes down to the world the world of days gone is dark and jary with many of the locations looking and feeling similar throughout the entire game now I'm not saying the world of days gone should be all sunshine and rainbows obviously a post-apocalyptic world is going to be dark and gloomy but just because it makes sense thematically doesn't mean I have to want to spend 40 hours in it feel like I'm sounding a bit harsh now when I'm not trying to I could very well find myself Contin to play days gone and seeing it through to the end because I definitely wasn't turned off by it to the point of not wanting to play it anymore and I can absolutely see why days gone has such a feverous fan base because there's a lot to like here okay so my return to Days Gone was a bit inconclusive let's move on and talk about the question I asked in the title of this video does it deserve a sequel if you're a days gone fan I'm sure you've heard this story a million times but for those who are new I'll try to explain it quickly after the release of days gone Bend pitched a sequel to Sony since Sony owns the days gone IP and also owns Ben's Studio they need to approve of the sequel getting made but they did not Sony didn't Greenlight the sequel and Ben was forced to move on to the next thing this was reported around 2021 and days gone fans were understandably very upset a lot of people feel confused about why day gone can't get a sequel considering its great sales numbers and very large fan base well there's a few different factors at play here first let's talk about the 8 million units sold any game selling 88 million copies should be seen as a huge success especially a brand new IP but remember when I told you the game's price dropped significantly pretty soon after launch we need to keep that in mind here because 8 million copies sold at $60 is not the same as $8 million copies sold at $40 or $20 due to the initial poor reception of days gone it can be assumed that most of these copies were not bought at full price meaning Sony made less money than anticipated in 2021 Sony reported that ghost of Shima had sold 8 million copies and show wred off as a huge success this upset the director of days gon Jeff Ross who tweeted that days gone had sold 9 million copies but was always treated as a failure it's unconfirmed if days gone has actually sold 9 million copies but most sources agree it has sold at least 8 million which would have made it even with gushima at the time but again we have to consider that price I have no way to track this data but let's just say that theoretically half of the copies sold of gushima were bought at full price and then let's say only 25% of the copies sold of days gone were at full price this means that ghost Shima made more money despite both games selling the same amount of copies and at the end of the day Sony is in the business of making money and just because your game sells 8 million copies doesn't mean that Sony is automatically making the same amount of money off those 8 million copies when you consider how high budget this game was and how long the development was I'm not sure Sony made a lot of money off of days gone and that ultimately plays a pretty big factor when deciding if you want a green light a sequel it may seem surprising to see the game's director make a comment like this publicly but the days gone Dev team is no stranger to making inflammatory comments the creative director of days gone John Garvin has also made many questionable comments regarding the game in 2021 he was on David jeffy's podcast where he blamed the fans for days gone to not getting made claiming not enough people bought it for full price he says if you love a game you should buy it at full effing price jaffy calls him on this immedi medely asking how can someone know they love a game that they haven't played yet Garvin Dodges the question and just keeps ranting saying if you aren't willing to buy a game for full price then you can't complain if a sequel doesn't get made this statement upset many people understandably so and it was especially ironic considering days gone did not launch in a good State meaning that those who did wait for a sale actually got a better experience Garvin has continued to make absurd and sometimes even offensive comments about days gone on his Twitter and that is a can of worms that I do not want to get into right now but just know it got bad enough that Ben Studio had to put out a statement distancing themselves from him Garvin himself has admitted that he's hard to work with and has said that days gon's development was very Rocky with lots of heated arguments between management this is where the pieces of the puzzle really came together for me we know that the initial reception of days gone was not great and we know that a lot of the copy sold were not bought for full price but I think it was this management team who clearly did not have a good relation relationship with Sony that were the real reason days gon 2 never got made with a really good pitch Sony may have been willing to take the risk on a sequel especially considering how many fans of days gone there are but when you combine the risk involved with a management team that clearly has a lot of internal issues that risk just becomes way too large it seems to me like Sony soured on this management team way more than they did days gone as an IP all right so I feel like I've said a lot of negative things throughout this video we've gone through the development history of the game My opinion on the game and also what happened post launch but even after all of that I still really wish days gone 2 could have been made and the reason I say that is because I think of all the other franchises that maybe didn't start out great but were able to bounce back in a big way when given the chance let's use a different PlayStation IP as an example the first Killzone game sits at a 70 on Metacritic that game was not well received at all but Sony gave them another chance and what happened Killzone 2 garnered a 91 on Metacritic and Killzone became one of Sony's Premier franchises for the next decade I don't doubt that days gone 2 could have had a similar story with the team taking feedback refining issues and making a fantastic followup Unfortunately they weren't given that chance but I don't think they have anyone to blame but themselves technical issues at launch sure we can work through them selling a lot of copies Under full price it's not ideal but at least a lot of people got their hands on the game and became fans of the IP but when you also add a difficult management team on top of this I can understand why Sony just wanted nothing to do with days gone anymore sadly I feel pretty confident saying we will never get days gone 2 most of the lead managers developers and writers of days gone have left Bend at this point so for the most part that team there is really not even the same team that made days gone anyways recent job listings from Bend have shown that they are moving in a much different Direction with their next game appearing to be a live service game there have been some rumors about a days gone movie so if you're a fan of the IP maybe you'll be able to get your fix that way but I wouldn't count on days gone 2 ever getting made and that makes me sad even though I don't personally like days gone that much I see how passionate this fan base is and I wish they could get this sequel that they clearly want so badly when I look back at it days gone is a bit of a tragic tale but through all of the trials and tribulations B was able to make a game that spawned a massive fan base and that is a success that nobody can take from them [Music]

Channel: ZackLillipad

Views: 606

Keywords: Days Gone, Days Gone 2, days gone gameplay, days gone rumors, days gone sequel, days gone news, days gone trailer, days gone ps5, days gone review, days gone horde, days gone revisited, days gone 2024, days gone pc, days gone update, is days gone worth playing, bend studio, bend studio news, bend studio rumors, playstation, playstation news, playstation rumors, playstation studios, days gone gameplay ps5, days gone 2 news, days gone 2 update, days gone ps5 gameplay, ps5

Id: EEI18FnHtTc

Length: 19min 7sec (1147 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024