Days Gone goes out of its way to make it feel like you’re in an oppressive and bleak setting. With many scattered survivors, bandits lurking in the streets and dense forests, and undead roaming among the remains of civilization–the zombie-apocalypse is a constant struggle to survive in. And the only thing keeping you going are whatever meager resources you could scrape together, and a motorcycle that’s seen far better days. Coming from Bend Studio, the same developers behind the Syphon Filter series and Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the upcoming open-world game is a massive departure for its creators, which shows some solid signs of ambition.
We recently got to check out the early hours of the PS4 exclusive, and saw some promise in the large open world of this zombie shooter. You take on the role of Deacon, a motorcycle-riding drifter who’s lived through two years of the apocalypse and counting–the game literally has a counter that shows how many days has passed since the outbreak. As he travels deeper into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, he’ll encounter bandits, gangs, dangerous wild-animals, and other ruthless factions seeking to claim what’s left of the world, all the while finding out just how far the infection has spread.
In order to stay alive, you’ll have to stay prepared and on the move, and Deacon’s most valuable tool to do just that is his motorcycle. Not only is it his go-to mode of transport, but it also allows him to haul materials to various locations housing safe havens. During our session, we started out in one of the many safe-zones scattered around the world. In these areas, Deacon can meet up with several NPCs who can give him quests, trade resources, and upgrade much of his gear –including his bike. In familiar open world fashion, you’ll be able to explore the map and take on a number of side-missions from NPC characters, as well as discovering stand-alone events that lead to some minor rewards. With a world size that’s similar in scale to Horizon: Zero Dawn, the map encompassing six regions that you’ll be able to explore will gradually become more diverse in layout and design, while also slowly growing more hostile.
I enjoyed the way Days Gone presents its world, but I couldn’t get over how familiar it all felt. With the fantasy of the zombie apocalypse being a very common premise–survivors being pushed to their limits while dealing with life in a chaotic post-civilization where bandits and the undead are out to kill you–it was hard to find something really unique in Days Gone. It often traversed a very well-worn path in the hour I spent with the game. Moreover, the exploration was constantly bogged down by some noticeable performance drops and odd bugs throughout, most of which occurred during moments of heavy action.
Eventually, we found ourselves searching an abandoned laboratory facility operated by NERO–Days Gone’s more sinister take on the CDC–which happened to be filled with the undead. While bandits and other factions will be on the lookout for Deacon to take what he has–the larger threat to everyone are the numerous ‘freakers’ lurking about in the world. The freakers are essentially traditional zombie fodder, and can be easily taken out when only dealing with one at a time. However, they can be especially deadly in packs. In one of the game’s more interesting moments, large swarms of freakers moved in unison like a ravenous wave shifting through the woods and streets of the world. Even when driving your bike at high-speed, they’ll literally throw themselves at Deacon to knock him off–resulting in him getting swarmed by others when he’s left scrambling.
In a number of cases, it’s best to stick to the stealthy approach when entering areas swarming with bandits and zombies. Much like any other open-world action-game, Deacon has an assortment of skills that range from crafting, melee, long-range, and stealth. As he collects experience from quests and taking out enemies, he’ll level up and gain skill-points to unlock new perks and buffs. These upgrades includes longer use of breakable melee weapons, improved aiming, and more efficient crafting skills for better rewards. With resources being so scarce, Deacon will have to scavenge supplies found out in the wilderness, and from derelict buildings and vehicles left on the side of the road. An ever helpful survivor-sense also allows him to hone in on points of interest in the immediate area.
In recent times, the survival aspect has become a key pillar in many open-world games. Whether it’s managing your character’s intake of resources like food and water, or simply just trying to keep them in one piece while exploring the land and trying to make it back to safety. Days Gone tends to stay within that middle ground. Not too overbearing, but still finding yourself in situations where you’re against a swarm of zombies with low ammo and healing. Deacon, while resourceful and capable of handling himself in a fight, isn’t able to sustain himself for long out in the wild.
Days Gone shows a lot of potential when it comes to offering a large world to explore. There are some traces echoes of other Sony exclusive titles like The Last of Us and Horizon to be found in its presentation and environmental design, which aren’t too bad of an influence on this open-world title. Even though it was a brief demo that only scratched the surface of what we can expect in the final game, I was impressed with how much of content and sights there are to see. While you can follow the story missions pretty closely, there are a number of cool side-objectives and challenging moments to be found off the golden path–such as trying to sneak through a freaker-infested lumberyard, which went horribly wrong in my case and resulted in me having to high-tail it back to my bike.
But we still have some concerns about whether it can find a more meaningful way to distinguish itself apart from some cool moments riding the motorcycle and the amazingly detailed zombie swarms. With a release coming sometime in early 2019, there’s some time for Days Gone to get itself into shape on the technical side of things, and hopefully show us a stronger sense of identity.
We Happy Few has been denied classification in Australia, although the reason behind the decision hasn’t been specified.
The game was refused classification this week based on Australia’s “National Classification Code”, which states video games that “depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.”
We Happy Few, the BioShock-inspired game that entered Early Access back in 2016, is finally coming out this year, but its road to release may be rockier in Australia. The game was refused classification in the country under the Games 1 (a) clause. Here is the official wording, pulled from the Classification Board’s website (via Kotaku):
“Reason: Games 1(a)The computer game is classified RC in accordance with the National Classification Code, Computer Games Table, 1. (a) as computer games that ‘depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.'”
Neither developer Compulsion Games nor publisher Gearbox Software (which is handling the physical edition) has yet to respond to this refusal notice in Australia; keep checking back for more.
The game is set in an alternate-history version of 1960s England in the fictional town of Wellington Wells. Players take on the role of characters who refuse to take their mind-altering happy pills and must find a way to escape from the town without being caught by its citizens. Players can get Early Access to the title right now on PC and Xbox One for $51. Compulsion released a new update for it today dubbed “Life in Technicolour,” which adds new Joy effects and improves other aspects of the game like UI and AI.
We Happy Few joins Saints Row IV, State of Decay, Hotline Miami 2, and South Park: Stick of Truth in being initially refused classification by the Australian Classification Board. Modified versions of some of those games were subsequently submitted to the board and granted ratings, the highest of which is the R18+ adult rating for video games.
Today during Sony’s Corporate Strategy Meeting, PlayStation boss John Kodera said the PlayStation 4 is entering the end of its lifecycle. While this could have a negative impact on Sony’s gaming division overall, it probably won’t because revenue from subscription services such as PlayStation Plus may help offset any decline in hardware sales, Wall Street Journal reporter Takashi Mochizuki quoted Kodera as saying. Importantly, Sony is not discontinuing the PS4 now or anytime soon, of course. The system is expected to continue to sell well, as new, exclusive games for it like The Last of Us: Part II, Spider-Man, and others come out.
As some further important context, Kodera was talking to investors and analysts about the health and viability of the PS4 as a platform. Earlier this year, Sony said it expected to sell 16 million PS4s during the year, compared to 19 million during the year prior, so Kodera was more than likely attempting to contextualize and explain the downturn in sales and what that all means. And the wording about the PS4 entering the end of its lifecycle may mean the system still has many years left of viability, only that the console is not rising as fast as it once did as it relates to sales. And of course, that is expected, given the system was released almost a half-decade ago.
The PS4 launched in November 2013, so it makes sense that the console would be entering the final stages of its lifecycle now given historical trends of consoles. The system has sold more than 79 million units by Sony’s latest count, which puts it just below the PS3 which reached 80 million units in 2013.
Sony’s Game & Network Services segment, which houses the PlayStation business, is expected to remain a juggernaut for Sony, with PSN hitting 80 million monthly active users (which is up from 70 million this time last year). Additionally, Sony said it will look to add more PS Plus subscribers going forward, which will help Sony make more money on a regular basis. On top of that, Sony said it wants to create more first-party exclusives, while it’s also looking at “harnessing growth opportunities” in the area of “add-on content.”
Overall, Sony predicted a downturn in profit for the Game & Network Services division for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021. For that year, Sony expects its Game & Network Services unit to bring in between 130 billion and 170 billion yen in profit, which compares to 190 billion yen for the current fiscal year.
Intriguingly, Kodera also said during the meeting that the period covering now through March 2021 would be a time when PlayStation will “crouch down once” to stand taller in the future. It’s not immediately clear what he meant by this, however, but there is already speculation that a PlayStation 5 console is coming. PlayStation executive Shawn Layden recently confirmed that Sony’s E3 2018 briefing will not include any hardware announcements, however.
Also during the event, Kodera said PlayStation VR as a platform is growing, but not at a level that reaches what was projected. That’s not the only PlayStation business that is not having the easiest time, as PlayStation Vue–Sony’s TV streaming service–is running into tough competition that is having a negative impact, apparently. Kodera said PlayStation VR and PlayStation Vue can still grow, but not necessarily at the rate they would like to see.
PS chief Kodera: PS4 is entering final phase of its life cycle, which would have negative impact to the unit, but recurring revenue via membership services etc should cushion some of that.
SIE chief Kodera: Beefing up first-party titles wouldn’t just mean more new IPs. Strategy includes franchising successful IPs and refreshing existing IPs.
SIE head Kodera told analysts and investors that the period until March 2021 would be when PlayStation to “crouch down once” to grow further in the future. hmmmmmm.
SIE head Kodera: PSVR growing, but industry’s growth is below market expectations. PS Vue is facing harder-than-expected competitions. Vue and PSVR would aim for further growth with realistic outlook.
Earlier this year, NPD analyst Matt Piscatella told GamingBolt that the PS4 should have another strong year of sales in 2019, though not as good as 2018. He added that the next PlayStation console probably won’t be released until 2020 or later.
Presumably to celebrate the upcoming reveal of Battlefield V, EA giving away one of the expansion packs for 2016’s Battlefield 1. The game’s In the Name of the Tsar expansion, which includes a new army and six more maps, is now free on Xbox One and PS4.
In the Name of the Tsar, which was originally released in September 2017, adds the Russian army, six multiplayer maps, 11 new weapons, and new vehicles like the Putilov Garford armored car, among other things. It normally sells for $15 by itself, so this is a pretty nice deal.
It’s not just Battlefield 1 that has free DLC available now; EA is also giving away Battlefield 4‘s Final Stand expansion so be sure to grab that, too.
Fighting game fans had a lot to like this week, as Battle Arena Melbourne 10 took over the Melbourne Convention and Entertainment Centre! The first season of Overwatch Contenders Australia wrapped as well, with some surprising results.
Be sure to head over and check out the rest of the esports hub! BAM 10 is this weekend, the biggest Fighting Game tournament in Australia! It’s pretty exciting! Remember you can email tips to me [email protected] or you can just click to send me an email. If you want, you can tweet suggestions at me as well, my twitter is down the bottom of this article.
Epic is going big on professional competitive Fortnite play. The developer announced today that it will provide $100 million (!!!!!) in funding for Fortnite prize pools in the 2018-2019 season. In a brief blog post, Epic said it wants Fortnite competitive play to be “more inclusive” and focused on “the joy of playing and watching the game.”
“We’re getting behind competitive play in a big way, but our approach will be different,” Epic said. “We plan to be more inclusive, and focused on the joy of playing and watching the game.”
More details on the structure of tournaments and eligible platforms will be announced “in the weeks ahead,” so keep checking back with GameSpot for more.
This is a really big deal, in part because the $100 million prize is more than double the $38 million in total prize money that Valve’s Dota 2 paid out in 2017 across all of its tournaments, according to E-Sports Earnings (via CNBC). The International, which is Valve’s massive Dota 2 event, paid out the biggest prize pool in gaming history last year with almost $25 million for the single event. For another point of comparison, the inaugural Overwatch League tournament will pay out a total of $3.5 million in prize money for its entire season.
Fortnite brings in more than $1 million every single day from its mobile version alone, according to SensorTower; Epic makes even more money from the console and PC editions. The game is free, but players can spend real money on cosmetics (which do not impact gameplay whatsoever).
In other Fortnite news, Epic is finally adding jetpacks to the game tomorrow as part of an update. Content update 4.2 arrives shortly after the end of Fortnite’s latest limited-time mode, Solo Showdown. Unlike other special events in the game, Solo Showdown was a competition in which players competed to earn a spot on the rankings board based on their score, with the top 100 players taking home a prize of V-Bucks. The standings can be found of Fortnite’s official blog.
