PS4 Days Gone (Bend Studio)

Last updated: March 1, 2023

PS4 Days Gone (Bend Studio)

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We looked at the top PS4 Games and dug through the reviews from some of the most popular review sites. Through this analysis, we've determined the best PS4 Game you should buy.

Overall Take

In our analysis of 158 expert reviews, the PS4 Days Gone (Bend Studio) placed 17th when we looked at the top 18 products in the category. For the full ranking, see below.

From The Manufacturer

Do you have the skill – and nerve – to survive the horrors of a broken world in this massive open-world action adventure? Step into the dirt flecked shoes of former outlaw biker Deacon St. John, a bounty hunter trying to find a reason to live in a land surrounded by death. Scavenge through abandoned settlements for equipment to craft valuable items and weapons, or take your chances with other survivors trying to eke out a living through fair trade… or more violent means. With humanity devastated by a global pandemic and ravaged by feral creatures known as Freakers, any mistake could be your last in your attempt to carve out a new life in the hostile Pacific Northwest high-desert. Using the power of PlayStation 4 and Unreal Engine 4, Days Gone offers an incredibly realistic and detailed open-world action game experience. Vast and hostile environments can be fully explored on the back of Deacon’s drifter bike. Abandoned vehicles can be searched for useful items. Towns and buildings can be entered and searched – at great risk. All lighting is done in real time – eye adaption technology creates a real sense of dread when entering dark buildings; day and night have an impact on the experience; weather affects enemy behavior. Exemplifying true, free-form gameplay, Days Gone offers freedom to explore, strategize and play “your way.” Every challenge can be approached and completed in an almost infinite number of ways. Many different items and weapons can be crafted using items found in the field, including brutal melee weapons and traps. Customizable weapons and skills offer true freedom in how the game is played. In addition to human drifters, marauders, and other groups, Deacon must face a wilderness overrun by Freakers – mindless, feral creatures, more animal than human but very much alive and quickly evolving. Freakers have needs, habits and behaviors that the player can learn and adapt to. The harsh high-desert of the Pacific Northwest offers a large variety of environments in a single geographical area. One minute Deacon can be riding through a pristine forest, a snow field, a lush meadow, and the next, be in the harsh desert lava fields. The hazardous environments, scarred by millions of years of volcanic activity, are defined by ancient lava flows, mountains, caves, cliffs and river basins, delivering a breathtaking backdrop to an equally diverse style of gameplay. Cinnabar mines, lava tube caves and small rural towns offer a variety of environments to explore.

Expert Reviews


What experts liked

Dealing with hordes – massive gatherings of zombies – is its own tense, terrifying challenge that requires you use more of your environment to survive since you can’t simply shoot your way clear of the throng before they tear you apart.
The NERO storyline gives intriguing, fresh details about this particular zombie apocalypse
Through all this Deacon is a conflicting character. He’s likeable and funny for the most part as he interacts, quips and wisecracks with the supporting cast.
Mixed in with the crowd are some enjoyable supporting characters. Deacon’s primary relationship with his best buddy Boozer (aka “Booze-Man”), is heartfelt, and their bro dynamic is one of the more affecting in Days Gone.
Freaker horde battles are blockbuster
Thrilling zombie horde encounters, finally getting to see the Pacific Northwest for myself.
- Kotaku
The game does something interesting if you die too many times trying to take down a horde during a main story mission: It offers you the chance to skip the encounter altogether and move the story along, as if you succeeded. It's one of the friendliest in-game gestures I've ever seen, and it's so convenient that I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel about it yet.
Solid combat mix of third-person shooting and stealth
Of course, enough time, enough money, and above all enough effort has been poured into Days Gone so that it looks nice and, once you’ve upgraded beyond the absurd limitations that pad the early game, it controls okay
You’ll get hours of high-quality, polished content that easily matches up to the best of the PlayStation 4’s exclusive catalogue this gen.
This will also be the first time most players encounter Days Gone‘s main selling point: Hordes. While available earlier on, you won’t have easy access to enough equipment to take on these swarms of 100+ infected. You can choose to fight Hordes during the day, where they will be hibernating in caves.

What experts didn't like

Some small things are annoying, like the camera during melee fights leaving you blind (it doesn’t affect your performance) and item pickup being finicky. Otherwise the controls are up to the challenge
Many narrative arcs end abruptly or lack interesting or meaningful conclusions
I’d argue it never really settles on an actual ‘main’ goal until almost the final few hours. It also pulls an almost cartoonish and childish fake out with the only high stakes plot choice it makes in the finale.
It doesn’t help that Days Gone takes itself almost religiously seriously, and story missions are wrapped in dramatic importance that they don’t earn.
These fantastic moments are fleeting, with generic missions, a messy story, and a plague of technical bugs holding back Days Gone from becoming a zombie-slaying classic.
The frame rate stuttered and occasionally froze outright for a few seconds. And the audio was generally a mess, with gunfire occasionally going silent, my motorcycle engine revving while idle, and dialogue coming in at volumes that make it hard to determine who is talking: too low for parts of long motorcycle rides, or too loud in comparison to the sound of the engine that suddenly dipped for no reason.
- Kotaku
There are patches to come for many of the small tech glitches I ran into. Some dealt with audio, such as a mechanic saying, "Hi," to me several times, even though I just bought a radiator from him. There's the occasional big-game graphical skipping, and in one major burp, Deacon drove right off the map. A
Performance is far from ideal between frame drops to 20FPS, micro-freezes and stutters
These inconsistencies lay Days Gone bare as a vapid content treadmill, an “immersive” fantasy nevertheless carefully modulated to accommodate the player’s thirst for dominance. Many of the systems seem included mostly just because they’re expected of an open-world game, if not to weave the absolute thinnest of illusions that this is a hard, unforgiving existence.
The game’s solid but standard-fare mission design is elevated by great storytelling, presentation and voice-work, and backed by an addictive core gameplay loop that gives players a large number of ways to dispatch or sneak around dynamic zombie hordes of varying sizes, with the inconsistent AI of hostile human opponents and random audio/texture bugs being some noticeable areas of disappointment.
The first whopping 10 hours of the game are a confusing mess. Launching off with a far too brief and disjointed flashback, we’re quickly introduced to main character

Overview

  • If you haven’t played Ubisoft “Assassin’s Creed Origins” in a while, it may be worth a relook. The award-winning game has undergone a recent revamp, taking it in the direction of a role-playing game. However, it’s still technically a stealth game, requiring the player to master the ability to sneak up on opponents.
  • When it comes down to it, many of today’s top games excel at worldbuilding. With Ubisoft “Assassin’s Creed Origins,” it’s all about the map. This version has the largest and most connected map in all the renditions. You’ll find even when you’re out in the middle of the desert, there are plenty of awe-inspiring views. The game will take you deep into the heart of Egypt, immersing you in the ancient culture of the country.
  • The open-world Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” also offers a sizeable map, with mesmerizing landscapes and photorealistic graphics.
  • If you’ve played “Grand Theft Auto” before, you’re probably already familiar with the meticulous detail put into the graphics. Rockstar “Grand Theft Auto 5” has realism all the way down to weather and lighting effects. This lends authenticity to the experience that makes you feel as though you’re truly a part of that world.
  • One of the best things about Warner Brothers “Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War” Gold Edition is that it helps you grow as a player. The game takes note of moves that you haven’t yet used and coaches you to complete them in order to become better at virtual combat.
  • One new feature that will enhance your experience with Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” is the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system. It also adds Mother Base to your adventures, which means Big Boss will have more resources than in previous Metal Gear games.
  • Storylines have become huge in many of today’s PS4 games, but many of them have a problem with growing repetitive over time. As with previous iterations, Ubisoft “Assassin’s Creed Origins” has an engaging storyline. However, some find the quests are repetitive over time, and you may find that finding the loot is too easy if you’re a more experienced player. Missions with Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” can also become repetitive. Although the story is captivating, it doesn’t seem to have as many twists and turns as other open-world games. Rockstar “Grand Theft Auto 5” is all based on auto heists, which provide plenty of adventures without a complex storyline. The quests in Warner Brothers “Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War” Gold Edition can also become repetitive.
  • Although Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” repeats itself over time, it’s important to note that you drive the storyline in open-world games, and this game gives you plenty of opportunities to make it your own.
  • If your setup supports 4K resolution, you may want to sway toward Ubisoft “Assassin’s Creed Origins,” which offers 4K gameplay as an option.
  • Lack of responsiveness can become frustrating with any game. The controls with Ubisoft “Assassin’s Creed Origins” can feel a bit awkward at times. That means combat can tend to feel unnatural, with attacks not landing quite the blow they feel like they should.
  • Many players prefer the spirit of competition that comes with playing others. Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” offers both solo and online team gameplay options.
  • For gamers on a budget, Rockstar “Grand Theft Auto 5” is the best option, selling for less than $20. Ubisoft “Assassin’s Creed Origins,” Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” and Warner Brothers “Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War” Gold Edition can be found in the $20-$30 range. But the Warner Brothers “Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War” Gold Edition includes a season pass, which expands your gameplay options.

Buying Advice

Your PS4 is all hooked up and ready to go. Now you just need the perfect game to get you started. If you’ve owned a PlayStation before, you probably have a few favorites of your own, but it can’t hurt to take a look at what’s out there. You may even find that a game you tried in the past has improved so much in recent versions, you’ll want to try it again.

With so many PS4 games available, though, you’ll first need to narrow down the type of game you want to play. There are role-playing games, abbreviated RPG, which are among the most popular. RPGs kicked off with games like “Dungeons & Dragons” and continue today with popular options like “Final Fantasy.”

The vast majority of games will fall under the action header, which includes the many shooter games you find when you’re looking around. This genre also includes fighting and combat games like “Street Fighter” and “Double Dragon,” as well as stealth games like “Assassin’s Creed Origins.”

Another video game category that’s popular with many players is open-world games. “Assassin’s Creed Origins” falls into this category, as does “Konami “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.” With an open-world game, you’re free to move around a virtual environment, choosing how you reach particular goals. These games have become increasingly popular as gamers seek to feel as though they’re part of an adventure, rather than just competing to win.

There are plenty of factors beyond gameplay, including the visuals on the screen in front of you. You’ll want to spend time in a world that’s immersive, rather than one that takes away from the experience. If you have a 4K TV, you’ll find your options are narrowed considerably since not all PS4 games are built to render at that resolution. Some games also have technical glitches that slow down response time, a flaw that can be extremely frustrating if you’re just trying to enjoy some game time.