In one especially tense mission, Deacon is kidnapped by a fanatical self-mutilating death cult called the Rippers and has to sneak and shoot his way out of their creepy compound. But the missions in Days Gone just aren't varied enough-nor is the story interesting enough-to justify its length. I mean, I've played through the immense Red Dead Redemption 2 twice. I have no problem with long open world games. But even if you just doggedly pursue the story and ignore everything else on offer, you're still looking at 35-40 hours of game here, which is way too much. There are more than 150 missions to complete in the game, a mix of story and side missions. When you whack a bandit or a freaker with a large, heavy piece of wood, or a makeshift machete created out of an old lawnmower blade, you can really feel it.Д®veryone you meet in Days Gone is either miserable, dying, or trying to kill you The character movement is lethargic, the guns are unexciting, and once again, the dim AI means there's no real sense of danger or urgency to the firefights. If you get spotted (or, as is more likely, bored of creeping around), Days Gone turns into a cover shooter that is, unfortunately, every bit as pedestrian as the stealth is.

It's incredibly basic stuff, with no unique systems to experiment with, and some very skittish, unconvincing AI-whether you're sneaking past freakers or humans. You also have to watch out for bear traps and tripwires that'll give away your position, and can throw rocks as a distraction. Stealth involves crouching in conveniently placed waist-high bushes, waiting for enemies to pass, then stabbing them violently in the head. It's a very basic simulation of motorcycle maintenance, but it means there's more to every long distance trip than just slamming the throttle and tuning out until you reach the objective marker.ДЄs for the actual missions, they're an underwhelming mix of stealth and cover-based shooting. If you crash hard or you're ambushed by opportunistic bandits, you have to gather scrap, another valuable resource, to repair it. As you ride from place to place you burn gas, which means scavenging for fuel when the tank inevitably runs dry. Your bike is your life in Days Gone, and keeping it running is a full-time job. But it's all well presented and often extremely atmospheric-especially when the sky turns a gloomy slate-grey and the rain and thunder roll in. It's a completely boilerplate zombie apocalypse, decorated with the End of Days Starter Kit: abandoned government checkpoints, mass graves, gutted houses, car tunnels stuffed with wrecks, and so on. It's a sweeping, rugged landscape, with old-growth forests, cascading waterfalls, dusty stretches of desert, one-horse towns, and kitschy motels. Days Gone is an open world game, set across a large swathe of the American Pacific Northwest.

Days gone review