How Bend Studio Turned Days Gone From a Mess to a Masterpiece

Bend Studio managed to take Days Gone from a rocky launch and turn it into a must-play masterpiece for the PS5. If you pick up Days Gone today, you might wonder why it received such lukewarm reception from critics. However, behind this game is a story of a studio with lofty ambitions and an unwillingness to quit.

[waverider]

The game was never a mess. The game was too ambitous, size wise, for the PS4, for the crappy CPU. The hordes were huge and it effect the game. But its not a masterpiece either. The problem in many review is the generic excuse that you can use in any game, but then forget it on other. It was the first big project from Bend Studio and the game was great. Graphics wise even with unreal engine the plastic look that we see in other games like Outriders on everything wasnt there.

[Sonic-and-Crash]

yes exceptionally good mechanics there and fun gameplay also keeping you attached to the whole game....though it had some flaws , mainly artistically that made the game not so appealable at first sight (main characters design , overused zombie lore etc)

[waverider]

I liked the RPG´s aspects of the game, upgrading and driving the bike, The weather system was impressive, Also liked the guns and the feel of them. Played a lot the hordes mode. Must go back and try it in the PS5.

[jukins]

Even on ps4 hordes where playable. For me it was the game play loop in between hordes. It was just to much the same over and over. Although i will say 60fps on ps5 definetly makes it that much better

[thorstein]

Definitely. I don't understand how this story was approved when this claim is a blatant lie.

[Knushwood Butt]

The community approves a lot of trash.

[badz149]

what ironic is, most of these people calling Days Gone a mess were the people trying their best to prove that CP2077 is running just fine

[Storm23]

Game is amazing on the PS5. Had a blast with it. Would have loved a sequel but at least the game showed me that I should be excited for whatever Bend is doing next.

[jukins]

Yep what they did rightbwas amazing. I feel if they streamline their strenghts into a less open world title they will have another hit

[Thundercat77]

I am very impressed at how good this game looks on PS5.

[cammers1995]

This game was so underrated. I loved it.

[Hikoran]

4 words that made it incredible. Life's for the Living.

[Fluttershy77]

does the 's count as a word or not?

[F0XH0UND922]

It's a conjunction, so no lol

[Fluttershy77]

@F0XH0UND922 but it's a conjunction of a word. As you can probably tell English is not my native language, so I'm sincerely asking, when you are counting words in an expression like this one... does the conjunction count as a word or not?

[The_Sage]

The conjunction is one word. I understand why you'd wonder about that.

[Hikoran]

It's a song. It should say correctly "Life is for the Living" but as this is sung, it's said Life's, as in life is.

[Fluttershy77]

Sorry, I won't give Deacon von Mumbling another chance

[F0XH0UND922]

Yeah, someone with severely diminished critical thinking skills would let a thing like that bother them enough to avoid the game. Don't reproduce, bro.

[Duke19]

Granted I played it on PS4 Pro, but I honestly really enjoyed it and definitely never noticed performance issues that could remotely classify it as "a mess". Was it really that broken on base PS4?

[Darkborn]

Same. It ran amazing on the pro and the ps5 runs so smooth.

[Fluttershy77]

No it wasn't. I disagree with people here claiming otherwise. And I want to say I hated the game but it run fine on base ps4, very small issues

[bestofyou]

Played the entire game on my launch PS4 and it was great! I waited about a year before playing due to backlog of games. But by that time all the patches fixed loading and issues with it at release. Game was amazing, on my PS5 now and it's even better.

[Thundercat77]

I am playing this game now for the first time on PS5 and I am amazed at how good this game is. All that unfair reviews were really misleading but still the game managed to be a critical and commercial success.

Currently hooked up with this one on PS5. It is easy a 9.5 game for me and a must have.

[Darkborn]

Exactly. The reviews were so biased against this game its crazy.

[SyntheticForm]

Sure, some reviewers ridiculously maligned the game for its rugged biker protagonist, but it wasn't all asinine critique. Much of it was justified and had all to do with the game and nothing to do with woke politics.

In some instances you had both types of critique occurring simultaneously in a given review, which made for quite the messy internet response.

Here's my two cents; good but fairly generic open-world game with all the activities you'd find in any other game of its type.

[purple101]

Good job it's free on ps5 -and this month on ps+ then!

[neutralgamer1992]

Issue was by the time this game came out there was a biased review fatigue against Sony games. Overall it's a much better game

[MetroidFREAK21]

I have it, planning on playing it for the first time on my PS5

[Christopher]

The game is not a Masterpiece. I enjoyed it, but it was extremely rough around the edges and they had to reduce what they had planned from their initial demos. AI was heavily, extremely heavily, reduced in the game. Hordes weren't as intelligent as they demoed, awareness for humans *and* zombies were so heavily reduced to favor a system of heightened awareness without sudden immediate death for the player (they were too powerful to give them the AI they planned for initially). Then the "ambush" stuff was pretty much two options across specific points that you could plan around (snag line and wolves).

I appreciate the game for what it is, but a Masterpiece just isn't at all how I would describe the game.

[SlothLordPootus]

I played it for the first time on the PS5. The game played very well, and I enjoyed it. I'd definitely say it's more of an 8, but still a great game, not a masterpiece IMO, but that's just my thoughts. The gameplay loop was great. The only thing that disappointed me was the environmental kills. The demos they showed made it seem like there would be tons of interactive objects around the world to kill zombies with, that really wasn't the case. The story, setting, characters were all fine, but not on my list of favorites....except maybe Boozer.

There were also still some small bugs when I played, but definitely nothing too crazy.

[Binarycode]

Playing though atm on PS4, runs well. Good graphics, clean with good textures and weather system.

Can't knock it tbh, would have preferred different characters if I'm honest., but still a good game and i'm sure PC gamers will enjoy when it comes.

[Christopher]

Deacon randomly driving anywhere after hearing a radio broadcast: "YELLS INTO THE VOID ABOUT HATING WHAT HE JUST HEARD ON THE RADIO!"

[FlintGREY]

The fact the CP2077 got better reviews still baffles me

[Inverno]

It had it's technical issues back on the PS4 and it seemed to get worse with every update so let's not kid ourselves. Don't pretend the game didn't stutter hard when trying to load another section of the world, and then the flashlight being broken for a while. But this wasn't the reason for it's "lukewarm" reception from critics. It got shat on for having a white main protagonist and they got triggered by the "sexism" of a single line because they couldn't understand it was biker gang tradition.
They were desperately trying to slander the game and failed because it still sold well. Sucks if SONY ignores the fan reception and chooses to believe the bias media over the financial success this game turned out to be. Getting real tired of all these "critics"

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Give some evidence of the game being "shit on" for having a white main protagonist. People are getting offended about something that never happened. A snippet from an IGN preview that was actually very positive about Deacon, his voice actor and the story, was taken out of context and exaggerated.

"Days Gone makes some interesting choices that kept my play session engaging, and the sections of its story that I experienced piqued my interest enough that I was legitimately frustrated that I couldn’t continue playing at the end of the demo. While I’ll admit that I initially rolled my eyes at yet another Gruff White Male Protagonist™ in a grim world - especially one with such a Gruff White Male Protagonist™-ey name as Deacon St. John - *************I ended up getting far more invested than I’d initially expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose - this is a first-party Sony title, and Bend is no stranger to writing around well-developed characters and games with a strong narrative focus, either***************.

Yes, “Deek” may seem at face value to be yet another gravelly-voiced antihero, but I found myself genuinely empathizing with him (largely due to some really good performance work by Star Wars’ Sam Witwer) as I learned more about his obligatorily tragic backstory and while interacting with other survivors. Though an early-on reference to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had me prepared for a lot of cliches written by big hammy fists, I found myself enjoying their rapport with Deacon and the several threads of storylines I got to pull at - predictable plot twists included."

[Inverno]

There's plenty of tweets from the time of it's release that expressed their dislike of the game having a white male protagonist. Perhaps the reviews themselves didnt shit on the game but there was some bias coming from many sites.

[chronoforce]

Days Gone got hammered for being generic but it's not really at fault for that. Ten open world games will release and do similar things but some them will be regarded as a masterpiece and some of them will be regarded as ok.

I remember how much praise there was for Dragon Age Inquisition when it released and then playing it only to be a bit underwhelmed by it. ME: Andromeda comes out taking more than a few pointers from it and all of a sudden journos are pointing out problems in it that were definitely in DA:I.

[Petebloodyonion]

I will always say this regarding Days'gone reviews is that the game suffered from the Quantum Break curse
Meaning the game was already judged badly by the reviewers before they actually played the game.
I remember saying months in advance that the game would score an average of 7 because all media had already passed judgment on it.

Remember right after the first trailer releases comments like: do we need another zombie game or Hey another Sony Uncharted clone was running rampant.
Then come to the protagonist feels generic
the game feels generic
etc.

[Christopher]

100% this. I still wouldn't rate it too highly, but this is one of those titles that got lambasted pretty hard before it even had a chance.

[Magic_Spatula]

So Bend Studios is being reverted to what they used to do and that's remasters/portable games for PlayStation?

[Christopher]

They're working on a new IP. So, no.

[TheTony316]

No, they're working on a new IP.

[PS-Gamer-1986]

It was never a mess to begin with, wtf

[Knightofelemia]

The game was never a mess sure it had bugs but what game doesn't have bugs and the bugs were patched it was never a mess you want a mess play Cyberpunk. The game is friggin awesome looks great has a solid story sure some shit is repetitive all in all its one of my favorite Sony games next to Horizon.

[InUrFoxHole]

On base ps4 the cut scenes were a mess. Hoping for a ps5 update

[northpaws]

Too many people trying to take Sony down now for no reason, look at all the top stories here, Sony closing a 15 years old store for PS3, which is totally normal and people have to blow it out of proportion, I started playing games when I was 5 on an NES, first game was Contra with my dad, and I never ever go back to play previous generation games, unless there are just some backlog that I am wrapping up, such as still trying to finish RDR2 on my PS5 now.

Not every game gets green lighted, Days gone didn't launch well, had its development problem. I personally like the game and will get Days Gone 2 if it ever releases, but there are thousands of games that don't get green lighted each year, we just don't know about them.

With that said, I do wish there will be Days Gone 2, maybe after the next game, they can show Sony that they are capable to pull it off.

[NotanotherReboot]

I'm not gay, but I was erect the whole time playing because of Deacon lol

[bestofyou]

If it last longer than 4 hours you might want to see a doctor. lol

[Rimeskeem]

I have been enjoying the game on PS5. Smooth, looks great, and the open world has a nice, different aesthetic to it.

[PitbullMonster]

As much as i like this game, it is not a masterpiece.

[Dfooster]

I'm playing it now for the first time on ps5 and its great. The bike controls well, the shooting is solid as well as pretty much everything else so far. Really like it tbh.

[BABI-PANGPANG]

I don't know why I have this but every time I decide to give this game a try I give up after doing a few missions in that area with that old lady driving a golf cart. Maybe it's because that's when the game opens up more and I get a bit intimidated by it.
Also have it with other games, especially with the later Assassin's Creed titles.

[got_dam]

I really enjoyed the game on ps4. It was far from perfect, but it had fun. I had a blast mobbing around on the bike in my home region, even when It was like playing an interactive flip book. Which happened a lot! Looking forward to the pc release.