Our first glimpse of the title’s high-octane thrills occurred in 2016 when Sony released a ten-minute long teaser. Inspired by popular TV shows like The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy, the development team settled on a project that would explore a zombie apocalypse through the eyes of badass bikers.

The story of Days Gone began in early 2015, with Bend Studio (mostly known for the underrated Syphon Filter games) wanting to try their hand at their first original IP since the 90s. And now that enough time has passed that the pre-release hype is no longer a factor, I’d like to take a look back on this over-hated gem and dive into exactly why I think it deserves more love. I’d argue that Bend Studio’s Days Goneis one such title, with the game being accused of being one of the worst PlayStation exclusives in recent memory despite featuring one of the only creative uses of a horror-centric open world in years. And with such an oversaturated market, it makes sense that players might be overly critical of a good game that doesn’t quite live up to their lofty expectations. On the other hand, this also means that it’s incredibly difficult for a title to stand out among other zombie games, as we’ve seen nearly every variation of an undead apocalypse since the early days of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. That’s why zombies are so prevalent in gaming, with these human-shaped husks just begging to be put out of their misery without the need for pesky moral quandaries. However, there are only so many times that a player can be urged to decapitate NPCs before some uncomfortable questions start to creep in about the sadistic nature of finding entertainment in simulated murder.

Out of all possible human experiences, combat is one of the most easily gamified.

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