Unreal world under the magnifying glass of Bend Studios • Eurogamer.net

Abandoned "Nero" facilities are state of the art, but the interiors of the buildings really stand out. I appreciate how random buildings around the world all tell a story through a neat design. It's not just empty pieces, like a royal battle game – Days Gone pays special attention to the design of each one. It helps to anchor the world and create a place that looks like a home. The atmosphere is greatly enhanced by the variety and quality of its environment. And we feel as well abandoned. Thick layers of dirt and dust are applied on stationery items scattered around the world, further reinforcing the feeling of ruin.

This is further enhanced by incredibly robust shadows – Days Gone seems to use a screen shadow form to allow finely drawn shadow details from small objects, up to 39 to the smallest tufts of foliage or stones scattered on the ground. I'm surprised and impressed by the implementation here – it's not a new technique, but Bend Studio makes heavy use of it, and it's not just used for shading environments purposes.

Dynamic lights, such as the flashlight's beam, also display shadows using screen space information – although this may highlight one of its flaws. When the source from where the shadow is to be projected is hidden, the shadow disappears and you may also notice that the shadows disappear. on the edges of the screen. This is not perfect, but it is an interesting solution to this problem that allows generally finer details and more shadows in general. Ambient occlusion is also well implemented, ensuring a realistic ambient shade.

All of this combines to create an impression of depth in the world that is impressive enough to see, but this is especially enhanced by the dynamic weather system. Thunderstorms can appear dynamically during the game and the result is striking. A wind system is used to increase the movement of the foliage, resulting in plants and trees whipping violently around you. Move in a clear plain during a storm and even distant conifers sway under the storm, while you move into the office creates a show often remarkable.

The variable rain density looks great and the rain particles are lit by dynamic lights. A wet shader is also used to give the impression of water penetration into clothing and the environment. Then there are the reflections. The reflections in the screen are deployed on bodies of water such as lakes and rivers, as well as in puddles of water dispersed in the environment. SSR is also used on various surfaces when the material requires it. As the SSR concerns water, however, it highlights a problem with the presentation: the rendering of water is random. Shallow streams simulate reflectivity and refraction realistically, but none of these waters react naturally to the player's movement. So we often have the impression that you cross the body of water, which is a little strange. It's a nitpick, but something I've noticed. What is impressive, however, is the way in which water surfaces react to climatic conditions: a helicopter with a rotating rotor disturbs, for example, a nearby lake.

Lighting is another important element of the visual pipeline. Days Gone supports real-time time changes while providing a range of indoor and outdoor environments. A form of volumetric lighting, probably of the type aligned with the voxel frustum, is used throughout the game to improve the thick atmosphere of the world, day and night. I also appreciate the way volumetric lighting can interact with the shadows while moving in the dark. areas such as tunnels. In addition, an impressive height fog is also evident at certain times of the game. As far as global lighting is concerned, I am not entirely sure of the method used by Bend here. The lighting is dynamic and changes depending on the time, but I suppose that a mix of real-time lighting and baked is used.

Days Gone also uses what appears to be a procedural sky system, perhaps using some kind of noise pattern to give the impression of dynamic and moving clouds. The clouds are designed to adapt to the weather. So you'll have a mix of sunny days, clear skies, thick cloud cover and everything else. The rendering of the environment is really solid in the whole. It's one of the most impressive examples we've seen of an open-world game under Unreal and, as Bend's first consumer console project, the results are excellent.

Of course, there are some notable limitations to consider. Although the game offers a range of items, such as gas cans, fire and physics, most of the world is static in nature. You can not shoot at tree branches or objects scattered around the world. The fire does not cause burns and does not spread like the Far Cry. Physics also applies only to very specific objects. Of course, there are enough interactive elements involved, but I think that a slightly more interactive world would go a long way towards improving the level of immersion.

I say that because some aspects of game design remind me of Far Cry 2: there are resources to manage, such as gasoline, and you have to worry about the damage to the bike. Driving from one point to another on the map is a real journey that requires resources, which is surprisingly engaging, but it lacks some nuances presented in the now-retro Far Cry 2. That's not to say that the systems It's interesting to play with – being stuck on the road and being forced to look for provisions to get your motorcycle on the road, which gives interesting moments. In one case, after returning to my bike with gasoline, I met another human who was trying to remove parts of my bike, which I immediately stopped. It was a scripted mission, but small events like this are a nice touch.

Days Gone also puts a special emphasis on driving your bike – it's the main method for traveling around the world and, as such, it's important that driving be enjoyable. Fortunately, this is the case here: the physics system allows realistic and realistic handling when the bike bounces around the world while crossing different types of terrain. Sliding through bends or slicing through thick forests is surprisingly fun and almost reminds me to play something like Motorstorm at times, especially once you get the nitro boost. You can also improve your bike while playing, further enhancing the experience.

Cycling is really one of the most successful and interesting mechanics of the game. It's fun to ride, but its fragility plays a role in survival – you have to manage your bike well and it's surprisingly appealing, but the rendering and rendering of characters are equally important for this experience. Days Gone is a surprisingly cumbersome storytelling experience, with plenty of cinematic and real-time dialogue. It's a highlight for this game with excellent cinematic animation.

The main character, Deacon, is also the voice of Starkiller himself, Sam Witwer, who has great reach and offers a solid performance, but it is the rendering of the character that perhaps interests us the most. Given the situation as a whole, I think the team did a good job, but Days Gone did not innovate. That said, there are some small touches. The skin uses underground diffusion both in the cutscenes and during the game – which becomes evident around the light sources. The rendering of faces and hair in the game is of high quality, but it is the clothes that impress the most. The physical-based materials really help convey the feel of fabric, leather and the like with proper fresnel and fine texture. Deacon himself is perfectly impressed: his suit contains many details that jostle realistically when you run on a course, while the reverse kinematics ensures a natural weight distribution during steep climbs or descents.

Games like Days Gone live or die by the quality of their combat systems and AI. There is a nice variety of enemies to face with very different tactics and a good mix between stealth and action. Sometimes it 's only a few rippers or a handful of zombies, but at other times you may encounter the horde, which is one of the defining features of the game. This vast group of voracious zombies can be found around the world and their loss is not an easy task, but it's nice to see so many individual models circulating on the ground without causing performance problems. Sometimes, the AI ​​may seem a little illogical, with enemies seemingly "stuck" in behaviors that do not fit the context of the scene.

I enjoyed my experience with Days Gone and the whole thing is solid in terms of visual presentation. The world is vast and detailed, the lighting is natural, the shadows beautifully implemented bring a welcome depth to the environment, the characters are designed with love and the zombies are numerous. But there is no enough the feeling of extreme refinement that we expect from the original versions of Sony, with some bugs and problems, while the basic performance of the PlayStation 4, despite the fix 1.03, are not up to the Pro. Despite this, the overall experience is solid and it's an interesting and often beautiful game. Although the zombie genre may be well used at this point, the way Days Gone unfolds is sufficiently different and fresh to be worth it.

Looking back on the games that Bend Studio has developed over the years, Days Gone seems to be the culmination of all that it has worked for. It offers a mix of action and stealth that is reminiscent of Siphon Filter games. The Resistance game took a step forward while developing the narration capabilities exhibited in Uncharted: Golden Abyss. This once tiny studio responsible for creating Bubsy 3D has grown and developed to become something much bigger. Days Gone may have taken years to grow, but it seems that the studio has grown enormously – and it's a solid foundation on which to build its next console game (new generation?) .