Days Gone review: sumptuously produced, painfully generic

Sony has been on a roll of delay. The company has released some of the most acclaimed blockbuster video games of recent years, ranging from superhero adventure. Spider Man to the surprisingly emotional reboot of God of the war to the vast and complex open world of Horizon Zero Dawn. While many publishers have turned their attention to the more lucrative space of real-world gaming, Sony has become one of the last bastions of support for titles producing prodigiously produced stories – which is why Past days so disappointing.

Released from Sony Bend Studio, the team behind the first series of PlayStation actions The siphon filter, Past days has a lot in common with the aforementioned hit games. It's huge and beautiful, with impeccable attention to visual details; from falling snowflakes to bats bristling with blood splatters to human characters, you have everything you need. It's a world that seems real, with a layer of history and reflection, and the game itself is a highly competent and well-designed experience.

The problem is that this is a story of painfully generic zombie genies, which finally unfolds like a dozen games you have experienced before. All these efforts are in vain, especially in a world where Sony also publishes brilliant The last of us, who took an apparently simple narrative of post-apocalyptic zombies in interesting new directions. Meanwhile, Past days, the end of the world is incredibly bland.

Past days is set in Oregon, but apart from the constant rain, it could be a place infested with zombies. It takes place a few years after a mysterious epidemic that has turned most humans into zombies freakers, which are basically wild animals that just want to kill everything. (In a nice touch, every time you pause the game, you are informed of the number of days since the trigger.) You play as a biker named Deacon St. John, or Deek for short, who was forced to to separate from his girlfriend, Sarah, the day everything went to hell, and he spent nearly 700 days since his mere survival with his best friend and biker, Boozer.

Once you dig a little, a lot of things happen in Past daysDeacon's story: Deacon's quest to find out what really happened to his girlfriend, a government conspiracy about zombies and various human factions still alive who are looking for ways to coexist and largely fail. These are all grouped in different storylines that you will explore throughout the game, but the problem is that few of them are really very interesting or original. It's pretty easy to predict the fate of many of the main characters, although it's likely you do not care much.

The cast of Past days is quite forgettable, apart from his graying advance, which is distinguished mainly by the amount of asshole he is. I understood. It's the end of the world. But it is difficult to connect a character who screams after children when he saves them and whose first action plan still seems to involve murder. Apart from some personal intrigues, especially that of a girl that Deacon "saves" then struggles to find her place in this terrible world – I could not get much interest for the characters or for what they did.

Unfortunately, the game does not offer much respite. In his heart, Past days is a standard third-person, open-world action game of the kind where everyone around you seems to need something. You drive mainly on a motorcycle and shop during the zombie apocalypse. You may need to rid an area of ​​zombies by burning their nests or emptying camps filled with violent religious zealots. There are many shootings with a shelter to hide behind and an unfortunate number of forced furtive missions. The shot feels good, and the melee fight has a nice weight. But the best we can say Past daysThe missions are that they are competent; there is nothing particularly bad with them, and sometimes you can even have fun, but they are so bland. Here, there is nothing you can not experience in other more powerful games.

Now, there are some aspects that give Past days a somewhat unique flavor. The first of them is your bike, which could actually be the ideal post-apocalyptic vehicle. It allows you to move quickly without making you feel as well in safety, which would rid the world of much of its horror. Like your horse Breath of nature or The witcher, Deacon's bike is almost a character in itself, an integral part of the experience. You can personalize it and you have to take care of it, repairing it regularly and filling the gas. This can be tedious, but it also requires you to really plan what you are doing. Once, I ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere on a rainy night, at a time when zombies were at the rendezvous and where it was probably the scariest moment I've ever lived in. the game.

The other distinctive feature is the impressive number of undead you will encounter. In the beginning, you will mostly eliminate small groups of zombies, but you will one day encounter hordes, which are essentially large herds of deadly monsters. This first moment when you spot a horde is terrifying, because it's hard to imagine how you'll face them. But this feeling does not last long. The walking Dead Past days are particularly stupid, more so it seems, in larger groups. You will discover the best tactic to get them out very quickly. Eventually, they simply become a nuisance, rather than a strategic challenge.

What is particularly frustrating is that a number of good ideas are buried under Past daysThe warm exterior. I loved how each story was presented as a guiding thread, so you always know what mission to follow, and that the game uses a lot of the ambient dialogue to showcase things from the world that might otherwise get you escape. You will also meet several colonies, each with its own atmosphere. one is led by an NRA fanatic who thinks the epidemic would have been under control if the US had fewer firearms laws, while the other is a seemingly peaceful place run by a former guardian from prison. The more you help each camp by shopping, saving civilians or killing zombies, the more they will trust you. These relationships give you access to more weapons, gear and mods for your bike. It's an excellent structure that requires you to decide who you want to help.

In many ways, Past days reminds me of the original Watch dogs. The two protagonists embody an inconceivable character and offer players a huge open playground filled with incredibly boring stuff. Past days has the skeleton of a good game, but the rest is so forgettable that it is ultimately a tragic waste of resources. Not really bad, just boring. But if Watch dogs 2 Everything seems to indicate, it's also the kind of experience that could potentially be redeemed with a sequel, hopefully, that will find a better way to stand out among the sprawling horde of zombie fiction.

Past days Released April 26 on the PlayStation 4.