Days Gone

I paid 16€ for this game and it's a fair price for what I got. I knew nothing about the "controversies" surrounding this title and if you're interested in getting into it, I suggest you try to steer away from those. As a game, it's fine. Apparently, it wasn't in the best of states back when it was originally released, but all seems to have been ironed out, by now. It works flawlessly, no bugs that I came across, it's brilliantly optimized (I'm running it on a 2021 laptop with an integrated 1GB VRAM GPU, which had no right whatsoever to run it, but somehow it does -- on Medium graphics preset, even). For this, alone, I should give it four stars. I can't, though, because the game is great if you know what you're expecting, and I clearly didn't. This isn't an action-adventure title, as GOG claims, it's a stealth game. I couldn't tell you whether it's a good or bad stealth game, because it's not really a genre I play, let alone stealth with light survival elements. It's slow, which I guess is fine, considering the genre, but it will bother those who are looking for a more fast-paced adventure. I'm not even bothering with the nests and such, basically driving from one main mission to the next, since that part of the gameplay tends to slow my enjoyment of the game a lot. The writing is kind of all over the place, with some writers clearly wanting to do their own thing, but some head-honcho was apparently extremely "anti-PC/anti-woke" and every instance of the word "god" had to be capitalized, even in expressions like "goddamn" and subsequent variations. It's also very... "US-centric", in the sense it will one-sidedly address some issues most of the world couldn't care less about, like gun control and prison overcrowding. If you want to play an action game that's post-apocalyptic, has a vehicle and (great) driving and combat mechanics, I'd suggest you get Mad Max (available on GOG, as well) instead. If you like stealth, then I guess this is the better choice of the two.

This is the game that proves you shouldn’t always trust “professional” reviews. Even though I’m usually not drawn to zombie games, this one… is an excellent open-world experience! It reminded me of Mad Max: the gameplay isn’t groundbreaking and can be a bit repetitive, but everything it does, it does really well. Most importantly, the story and world are truly captivating. So if what you’ve seen has piqued your interest—don’t overthink it, just go for it. Especially on sale.

underrated

Solid design of stealth gameplay in zombie survival aplocilpse settings. Ticks all the boxes for what could be super gaming experince. Sadly it has come from consoles so it has 2 critical flaws. First - you can't just save game, have to be close to save point (bed or bike). It artificailly limits your gameplay sessions to long sittowns and often results in lost progress. Second - movemnt feels clunky and respond badly to mouse and keyboard stearing. It is playable but provides very bad experince, as if there was a delay betwen what you input and when your character reacts to. Overall I'd recomend it for people who can handle console game ports with gamepad. For old school PC player it is a bit disapointing and at times frustrating.

Just having recently played through Dying Light and Mad Max I couldn't help, but notice that Days Gone has managed to copy the most annoying mechanics of both games - weapon durability and fuel consumption. You kill three zombies - weapon is broken. You can carry ten bottles and ten rags, but at the same time you are limited to three molotovs? Combat turns very quickly into repair/crafting fest mid fight. Hordes - lure them and pop them. Also - the game is VERY repetative and requires going back and forth between same few locations from the other side of the map, but the motorcycle is running out of fuel faster than a fat kid through candies. Combine that with the choppy questline, spread thin by filler quests, and it gets really tedious. Speaking of combat - it's nothing to write home about - if the melee weapons were unbreakable, you'd be unstoppable... Stealth is passable, but guncombat is atrocious. The whole experience feels like the developers had a checklist of things they needed to have in the game: open world - check, meaningless upgrades - check, annoying sidekick - double-check. On the positive side - the game is very beautiful and the story looked interesting, but is dragged on for far too long between fetch quests, so you lose the narrative completely. Like Mad Max, it would have benefitted greatly by reducing and turning filler quests and objectives into meaningful missions and getting more focused on the story, instead of bouncing on and off between them.