If you go down to the sawmill today – brrr, the sawmill – prepare for an even bigger surprise. Bend Studio’s grand 2019 folly Days Gone has had a PS5 upgrade, and it’s no longer a biker World War Z. It’s a biker World War XXL.
In Days Gone, you play as drifter-outlaw Deacon St John, taking mercenary missions in the post-apocalyptic Oregon wilds while keeping your biker bro Boozer alive and tracking down your presumed-dead wife Sarah. The original received mixed reviews thanks to some repetitive gameplay, disjointed storyline and early-day bugs. Sales suffered as a result but over time, the game developed a cult following from those who love survival titles with bite. There was, after all, a certain perverse satisfaction to burning out every single freaker (our overly-affectionate infected zombie enemies) nest you come across, and the repetition of infiltrating the many cultist outposts and government quarantine sites tweaked the comfort nodes of Assassin’s Creed fans.
Returning to the forests of Cascade six years on, initial criticisms appear harsh. Thanks to a seamless overlapping mission structure, Days Gone remains an involving affair. It offers a realistic slog through unforgiving territories towards a glimmer of light, all the time dreaming of a bike that, given enough upgrades, doesn’t handle like a rusty lawnmower in a mudslide.
This visual brush up, first delivered to PCs in 2021 and now ported to the PS5, is certainly a crisper, more vivid experience. Some cinematics could have come straight out of The Walking Dead, while the Oregon scenery from the top of your radio tower home base is now a postcard-perfect vista that’ll have you booking a cabin in the zombie apocalypse. But with the original game barely dated, it’s not enough to justify another playthrough alone – like recent Resident Evil or Silent Hill remakes. Nor does it fix any of the story flaws and repetition issues facing new players. Minor challenge additions are nice but innocuous – a speedrun mode puts a timer on screen and a permadeath mode returns you to the very start at every neck-chew.
No, the main draw for Days Gone Remastered are the hordes. The main USP of the original Days Gone was that it came littered with herds of up to 500 freakers, some roaming regular migration paths, others holed up in lairs, burrows and logging plants. Stumble into one and you’re instantly in a sprint for your life against a rolling tide of zombies pursuing you as relentlessly as any Harry Styles single. The main game’s hordes are unchanged, but Remastered adds a Horde Assault arcade mode offering even bigger fights – up to 800 face-gnawers at a time – and an Ultimate Horde of infinite zombies if you manage to survive more than half an hour in any of the four maps.
The mode drops you – playing any one of numerous in-game characters including Sarah and Boozer but you know you’ll go for Shirtless Deacon every time – into a chunk of one of four unlockable areas of the main game, boasting a decent cache of mid-to-late game weapons, bike upgrades and throwables, with a small horde already rushing you. Fight your way to your bike and you might have a minute or so of ‘explore’ time to race to one of the many map-marked supply boxes and stack up on better weapons or more health and ammo. Then another bigger horde is on you. Then another. Then another.
Basically, it’s a numbers game and then you die. You’re out to score the highest kill rate and survival bonus that you can before you’re inevitably swarmed to death, although skill points and XP unlock playable characters and provide upgrades to injectors which help or hinder your battle abilities (in return for a cut or bonus to your final score).
For those into Days Gone for the adrenaline rush that hordes provide – sprinting to gain just enough distance to empty a clip and lob in a molotov or two into the onrushing crowd, finding bridges or gullies to help syphon them into bomb-able clusters – this is the motherlode. But it also negates one of the best parts of tackling hordes in the main game: the preparation. Scouting out stealth areas and funnelling points to litter with traps is an essential and enjoyable tactic there. Here, you also need to know your terrain, but only in order to race directly to the next materials stock-point or supply box between onslaughts. There’s no time for planning – and you’ve no clue which direction the next mass of shrieking grey bastards is coming from anyway.
Luckily, Days Gone Remastered is priced smartly for its potential audiences – a cheap upgrade for PS4 owners who want the new modes (£10), and a reasonable lay-out for new players interested in exploring one of the console’s lesser-appreciated delights. One important piece of advice, mind: if you come across a quiet-looking sawmill, don’t go skipping in there like you might sell some cookies.
‘Days Gone Remastered’ is out now for PlayStation 5 and PC
VERDICT
Days Gone Remastered is an impressive graphical upgrade to a game that survivalists will relish but lovers of mission variety might find something of a repetitive, meandering drag. If familiarity is your bag then the main game is an underrated and worthwhile 50 hours or so to get good and lost in, its percentage-based mission structure drawing the player naturally through the game and its upgrade systems allowing for swift specialisation and satisfying progress. For repeat players, the Horde Assault mode is the sole significant addition, and only then for those craving more of the visceral thrill of the main game’s massed battles. More strategic horde-destroyers may well find it frustratingly rigid and brutish.
PROS
- Even for such a recent game, the graphic upgrade is noticeable
- Horde Assault mode allows new players instant access to the game’s biggest thrill
- Bend Studio have smartly repackaged an often overlooked and immersive experience
CONS
- There’s little scope for prep or tactics in Horde Assault – maps dotted with new locations for bigger hordes would have been preferable
- Other new features are superfluous
- Nothing here will likely encourage an improved sequel