Days Gone and why it's important for Playstation to partner with Steam and PCs
The industry can be a turbulent world for both small fish and big companies in search of new markets to expand, in fact Sony with its Playstation has tried many times without success to gain a foothold in the growing PC market ruled by the Olympus of distributors such as Valve with Steam and Epic Games with its Store, everything pointed that Playstation would be satisfied with the superlative sales of its PS5 and would give more importance to First Party studios but a surprise came after a Port was announced trying again to conquer PC territory for Sony. Days Gone, one of the video games that militated as gold exclusives in the Playstation house and that today, from the hand of Bend Studios again presents a port to which I have been able to take a look, in advance I tell you that it does not change anything from the PS4 version but introduces a very fluid game (even to be port) in one of the largest PC stores and as Playstation of lead developer, so it opens the door that later they can let go of iconic titles to be able to play it on PCs. It's an experiment that could have good repercussions down the road for gamers, we'll see.
Starting with the basics Days Gone is a zombie game and maybe the subject matter and how overloaded the undead titles are in all media doesn't help it, but this game shines on its own, trust me: a campaign is much closer to be compared to The Last Of Us than to standard games of the apocalypse, the gameplay although it is not innovative if it stands out above other Sony exclusives, in general since 2019 is a work of many, many values of productions and that has managed to transit through the stormy path of delays and creative differences, Sony has an exclusive that came great to the PS4 catalog and now comes to PC as part of an expansion strategy of the company.
From the beginning in this game something is clear to us, the Bend Studio team is fascinated by the cinematics, perhaps too much, because in every corner we can find a piece of exposure that does not necessarily tell us something interesting about the life of Deacon, our protagonist and his journey that although it is not very clear to us until after the second act, It manages to introduce us to complex characters that work in a very human way with our protagonist, they are complex yes, but Bend Studio doesn't use it to its advantage in the more than 20 hours of gameplay that the campaign takes, it's all too random to tell me a story and when it can lead me to the main plot, it gets lost. There is a lot of work to do with certain characters that while we understand that they are counterparts to give play with our motorized protagonist and fighter of a thousand battles, the arcs that the secondary ones occupy are not understood too much and after a few hours of gameplay they no longer interest you.
And well, when you have a game that does not sell its story after the first 5 hours of gameplay, what is left? The game, the gameplay, betting everything on the mechanics and hope that they hook and in this I can say that while it falters a lot with its missions, which is an almost main and crucial component in this type of games (we have side missions that contribute absolutely nothing in script material or development) or when we have them first we have to eat a 3K trip down the road to then only see a cinematic and go back where we came from, it's an experience that feels unjustified and even more so when we're talking about a sandbox that never feels comfortable with the idea of having an open world. And many will ask me if the appeal of this game is simply riding a motorcycle through the zombie apocalypse but I'm not comfortable with driving long distances when the bike handling controls aren't engaging or fluid enough.
I think Days Gone shines when it's not trying to be something it's not, at Sony they have the idea that their titles should take advantage of sandbox mechanics but I think the strengths of this game are much more in its script and scenarios, everything else I think detracts energy to the developers and make them move in gameplay that does not favor the game and does not help to highlight what it does have potential, despite all this it is a solid game that is re-released on PC, having better frames per second rate (practically unlocks it) better graphics and a comfortable feel even for a port although I think the most important news is that Sony is seriously considering pushing into the PC market with their exclusives.
This post has been one that I found interesting to do, after a decade asking for quality PS to PC games finally there is a light on the way, maybe also driven by Microsoft who is betting on this market in a big way (already demonstrated with the purchase of Mojang and its failed purchase of Discord) but anyway, it's an ideal scenario for gamers, a win-win for PC gamers. This has been a preparation post for something big I have in mind, I know you will like it especially to those who follow day by day the gaming industry, see you tomorrow!