Days Gone hands-on experience – Great survival game that you will definitely find challenging

Days Gone is a survival game that will be launching exclusively for the PS4 on April 26. Thanks to Sony Interactive Entertainment Singapore, we were fortunate enough to play the game for a little bit during our time in Thailand a while ago. Check out our recent interview with the community manager from Bend Studio – David Lee.

Watch our gameplay here:

Days Gone is a third-person survival game where you will play as mercenary Deacon St. John. The events in the game take place two years after a global pandemic crisis which had turned almost everyone into Freakers. The world went into chaos since then. Deacon lost his wife in the process and he is now a mercenary who travels around with his motorcycle from time-to-time.

It is a huge open-world game that takes place in the Pacific Northwest region, also known as Cascadia. It is basically a region in western North America bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and by the Cascade Mountain Range on the east. There are plenty of locations for you to travel to.

In Days Gone, Freakers are undoubtedly the biggest threat among all the enemies in the game. Freakers feed on human flesh and hunt by instincts. They drink water and they need sleep as well. What is more unique about the Freakers is, they perform cannibalism! They tend to become more aggressive when it is at night or when the snow comes. Therefore, be prepared with loads of ammo and resources during those scenarios or risk getting hunted down by the Freakers.

There are a few types of them. The pesky and sneaky Newts that love to hunt from the shadows. Hundreds of Freakers make up a huge group known as the Horde. Also, there is the Screamer that can produce loud noises to call for other surrounding Freakers to its aid.

Furthermore, Freakers have their own nests. Nests are shelters for them to sleep and live in. To destroy them, you are going to need some flammable and explosive items. Going in for a surprise ambush on a Freaker nest with just your guns and melee weapons is not going work well.

Freakers’ ears can be collected for bounty which means you can exchange them for supplies and resources. They are currencies that help you set up camps as well so try not to always avoid a Horde. Even though it is a drag to collect so many ears at once after you eliminate a Horde, it is still essential because money does not exist anymore.

Freakers are not your only concern though. Rippers are basically a bunch of dangerous psychopaths that carry weapons, going around from places to places. Then there are dangerous animals such as wolves that you might bump into while venturing in the wild. Of course, there are infected animals too and they are even more dangerous than those ordinary ones.

There are a lot of weapons available in the game. Pistols, machine guns, melee weapons and much more! You can even craft your own explosives although it still all depends on how much resources you have. You can even create traps to catch careless enemies off-guard. Remember to take advantage of your surroundings too while fending off the Freakers such as blowing up a nearby petrol tank to light them up.

The place where you park your bike is also your checkpoint so be sure to park it wisely and carefully at a safe location. Your bike is your precious saviour because it allows you to travel everywhere and to outrun Freakers so be sure to take care of it properly. Once you have cleared a nest, you will have the option to fast-travel but it is going to consume your bike’s petrol.

An easy way to kill a Freaker would be using your bike to run over it because it is usually a one-hit kill. However, ramming your bike into obstacles and even Freakers would decrease your bike’s endurance level so be careful. Though, it is not like your bike would just stay at its pitiful state all the time. Upgrade it, not through skill trees but camps. Once you increase the bike’s durability by upgrading the necessary parts, it will last longer when you decide to go rampage mode on the Freakers. Of course, you will still need to repair the bike after that.

There are three different skill trees, namely Melee, Ranged Combat and Survival. They are upgradable and they are extremely crucial elements of the game. If you want to scavenge for more supplies, you may want to upgrade the Survival skill tree as you will get more items that you need. Ranged Combat allows you to use focus mode more effectively and have more ammo capacity. The Melee skill tree allows you to learn a skill to repair certain weapons so you can consistently use a melee weapon again and again even after breaking it. It also increases the damage of your boot knife which you will always have with you because it never breaks. An advice to you would be to find the perfect balance between the three skill trees.

Furthermore, every player will experience the game differently because of the dynamic weather system. Not to mention that there are a lot of random in-game events. The storyline will not change regardless of what happens and that is what makes the game all the more interesting. The replayability of Days Gone is great too. Besides that, the game’s difficulty comes in either easy, normal or hard mode. Damage dealt by the enemies and their total health amount are the only aspects that separate the difficulty levels.

We think Days Gone is definitely a game worth spending time on. It offers so much room for creative play as in there are so many ways to complete a mission depending on your playstyle. The graphics and contrast are very good. The scenery of this post-apocalyptic world is extremely pleasing to the eyes. Most of all, the gameplay is realistic especially when it comes to you fighting against the Freakers. The melee actions are extremely smooth as well. Overall, very aesthetic and a decent storyline.

To know more about Days Gone, you can visit Bend Studio’s official site. You can also visit Bend Studio’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to keep yourself updated before the game officially launches on 26th April!

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