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Days Gone Review On PC: Farewell Oregon

I spent almost 37 hours playing Days Gone in order to beat it on PC. Before you buy it, I have a few things to say about this open-world zombie survival game that is set in the post-apocalyptic state of Oregon.

While I don’t see myself playing through it again, I did enjoy it overall and am glad to have experienced the world as Deacon St. John. He kind of grew on me, and I’m hoping for a part 2 with a few changes to the game.

Here is my Days Gone review and impressions played for the first time on PC in 2022.

Is Days Gone Good?

I think Days Gone is a good game overall. It allows you to take as much time as you need to complete it, offers many side quests and weapon options, and the Freakers (types of zombies) are well done.

However, I thought the story and some cut scenes dragged on a bit too long. I also encountered a couple game breaking bugs and crashes, but a simple restart of the game allowed things to progress. For all those reasons above, I give Days Gone a rating of 7.9 out of 10.

Reviewed on: Windows PC
Hours Played: 36.9hrs
Completion: 100%

My Days Gone Rating:

7.9/10

What I Liked

  • Freakers and Animal AI was very good
  • Gunfights and controls were smooth
  • The environment was immersive
  • Good graphics and art style

What I Didn’t Like

  • The story felt too long (and had many unnecessary cutscenes)
  • Battles were a bit short
  • The action key needs to be more generous on PC
  • Game-breaking bugs

Why Trust My Review?

I bought Days Gone on PC through STEAM with my own money.

I completed the game in 36.9 hours, according to STEAM. Keep in mind that I had some issues that added extra time because I didn’t realize that the game was broken, so I kept trying to figure it out by wandering around before I eventually gave up and Google’d it.

I streamed my entire playthrough with commentary on YouTube in a 15-part series.

How Long Is Days Gone?

According to HowLongToBeat, Days Gone should take 36.5 hours which is almost how much time it took me to complete it. If you want to complete all of the content offered, it should take around 64 hours in total.

While I tried to focus on the main mission only, there were times that I was sidetracked, and of course, a few game-breaking bugs that added to my overall playtime.

What Is Days Gone About?

You play as Deacon St. John, a former member of the Mongrels motorcycle club who sets out on a journey to find his wife Sarah and keep her safe from harm.

Deacon And Sarah Days Gone

“Ride and fight into a deadly, post-pandemic America. Play as Deacon St. John, a drifter and bounty hunter who rides the broken road, fighting to survive while searching for a reason to live in this open-world action-adventure game.” – STEAM

The story takes all kinds of twists and turns, but most of it feels predictable. Many of the jokes were cliché which probably added to my feeling that the game went on and on. Not to mention many unnecessary cutscenes and stories.

Another issue was with the walk-and-talk cut scenes. The amount of delay after the talking was annoying. Sometimes you would still be walking for a bit in silence before it finally skips to the next scene. And to think about it, why even have the walk-and-talk? Just do one great cutscene and get us back to the action.

I love zombie games and thought If you were to replace the characters from The Walking Dead and fix up the storyline, the game would be on another level. But I’m a bit biased because I also love that show.

Where Does Days Gone Take Place?

Days Gone takes place in the fictional post-apocalyptic state of Oregon, two years after a global pandemic. The zombies that rise during this time are known as ‘Freakers’ and have overrun much of the state.

The game allows you to travel through various areas, from bright and sunny to snowy mountain tops. This gives you a good range of environments to play through. The time of day also changes, which adds to the level of difficulty and more enemies.

Map of Oregon In Days Gone

The map is quite large if you’re going by foot, but Days Gone is designed to be traveled by motorcycle. But even when traveling on two wheels, it can get a bit repetitive, so they added a fast travel option between camps.

The Fast Travel option is handy and isn’t just a freebie. It will cost you fuel, and if there are areas that haven’t been cleared between you and where you want to go, you won’t be able to fast travel.

Average Enemy Difficulty In Days Gone

The enemy difficulty of this game is average. I think the reason is that they’ve focused more on the story rather than creating an insanely difficult zombie survival game. Which is totally fair.

Freaker Horde Days Gone

However, the hordes of Freakers are on a different level. If you run out of stamina, you’re done. There are so many of them, they run fast, and they just don’t stop.

The game tried to tell me how to take down hordes by myself, but I just felt like they were too overwhelming. If I had loaded up on stamina cocktails, had better weapons, and used the environment better, it might have resulted differently. However, I took the slow grind route and only managed to off a few at a time.

Days Gone Weapons And Items

There are quite a few weapons that you can use in Days Gone. You have your pistol and a rifle, but you’ll also be able to obtain or craft silencers, scoped sniper rifles, shotguns, Molotovs, and extended magazines.

Along with the firearms, you can also craft melee weapons like baseball bats with nails from scavenged materials. This is handy if you don’t want to make too much noise and draw attention from the Freakers.

You can purchase many items from different camps spread throughout the map. Each place has “shops,” depending on what you need, from fixing and upgrading your motorcycle to buying better weapons. You’ll need to earn credits and trust before you can get the good stuff, though.

Buying Weapons Screen From Merchant

There are animals and plants you can harvest, which will allow you to craft healing, stamina, and focus items. I didn’t really dive into this much, and I’m sure it would have helped if I had.

However, I tend to stick with the basics and try to roll through games. I used the default pistol and a machine I picked up off an enemy for most of the game. There was always plenty of ammo, and being stealthy didn’t matter so much, so I didn’t have too much of an issue.

Unfortunately, my weapon choices and strategy were not that great for tackling hordes. If I had to fight another horde, I’d carry more machine guns and stamina cocktails.

Learning Skills Wasn’t Required

There is a whole section for learning new skills, including melee, ranged combat, and survival. You’ll need to obtain skill points by completing certain objectives and then use 2 skill points in a single tier in order to progress to the next tier.

Skills Tree Menu In Days Gone

There are some handy skills to learn, but overall I thought most of them weren’t needed in order to complete the game.

There are also NERO injectors that can be found at checkpoints which increase the health, stamina, and focus of Deacon. Because I ran out of stamina so much, that is what I used most of my points for.

Good Settings And Controls For A Console Port

The graphic settings were pretty simple. I only changed the resolution and hertz (1440p/144hz), and I made sure V-Sync was off.

Now let’s talk about the controls on PC.

The game is a console port, so it’s expected that it won’t be completely up to par for avid PC gamers. To my surprise, they did a great job.

The only issue I really had was with the action key. When you’re standing next to an item or your motorcycle and press the appropriate key (either E or F to fix your bike), you have to have your character be quite specific in the direction they are facing in order to do the action. I don’t think it would hurt to be a little more generous in the interaction.

What made this super annoying is if you were trying to get on your motorcycle while being chased by Freakers, and your character just bumbles around like he’s trying to do something but doesn’t end up doing anything.

It also takes quite a bit of time to actually hop on your bike, so it just makes the situation worse. I died many times because of this.

Days Gone Updates And Bugs

I played the game in 2022, but it was originally released in 2019. At that time, the reviews looked very poorly upon the game and included rants about bugs and other issues.

They’ve had several updates before my playthrough, and overall it was pretty good, but as I mentioned earlier, I ran into several game-breaking bugs.

The most frustrating bug was in a cave where a horde was supposed to spawn but never did. I spent over an hour running around trying to figure out if I was in the right area or had to trigger something to get them to show up. Eventually, I looked it up, and Redditors said that it was a bug and that I had to save and restart the game. Terrible.

I also had several crashes throughout my 36.9 hours. I’m not sure if it was an NVIDIA driver issue or the game itself, but it led to frustration when I had to restart entire sections of the game.

Verdict: Would I Recommend Days Gone?

Overall, I felt I got my money’s worth and glad to have played it.

If you love zombie games, it’s a no-brainer to add to your list. If you’re looking for a fairly chill game that you can explore and take your time in without an insane amount of difficulty, this is it.

And because Days Gone is much cheaper now than it was at release, I can easily recommend picking it up. While you give it a playthrough, remember some of the bugs I experienced.

Despite some recent drama with the Days Gone Director, I hope there is a Days Gone 2 and that they take notes from all the constructive criticism given about this game.

About BONE

BONE is the creator of this gaming review blog and spends much of his free time playing the latest games on PC. He's also a computer enthusiast who loves new hardware. Eating cashews and drinking coffee helps him get by during long play sessions.