u/DarvX92

Been playing for a good while. Haven't really enjoyed myself that much, but I've kept going because everyone says "it gets much better" later on and that I'd "regret dropping it".

For the longest time I felt like I was just doing errands for the camps. Ride here, collect something, rescue someone, deliver something else. I kept waiting for the game to finally open up, because everyone insisted it eventually would.

Then I reached the Carlos storyline and, for the first time, I was completely hooked.

The infiltration with Skizzo, his betrayal, finding out Carlos' past with the Mongrels, racing back to Iron Mike's camp while the Rippers attacked, defending Boozer as he planted explosives on the dam, flooding the Rippers' camp. It finally felt like the game had found its identity. There was a clear objective, personal stakes, and some genuinely memorable set pieces in the missions.

Then Carlos drugs you before the final confrontation.

At that point I thought: "Finally. This is where the game really begins. He'll be the bad guy you'll have to track down and eventually finally kill"

I expected an actual melee boss fight, followed by Carlos escaping. I thought the next few hours would be me and Boozer tracking him across the open world, following clues, hunting him down, without constantly going back to camps for another shopping list of chores.

Instead, I pressed R2 about five times.

Carlos died.

That's it.

After all that buildup, the entire storyline was over almost immediately. Iron Mike tells you he let Skizzo escape, the questline instantly jumps to 100% after what feelt like less than 60 minutes, and the next mission is basically "go collect scrap because the Freakers damaged something."

I genuinely didn't know what to think. I was stunned.

My biggest issue with Days Gone is that whenever something genuinely interesting does happen, it's over almost immediately, and then the game throws you back into hours of errands for the camps.

Go here. Pick up this. Deliver that. Rescue this person. Repeat.

I also don't really feel any sense of progression. The map barely changes, the gameplay barely evolves, and I never struggled with resources. I basically swim in credits, have good weapons, reputation unlocks naturally, and there was never much reason to engage with the survival systems.

Ironically, some of the optional content was among my favorite parts. Clearing camps, finding bunkers and burning Freaker nests was genuinely fun. I burned through all of them in a couple of hours though.

The NERO missions with O'Brian were also intriguing, but they just stopped? for a huge chunk of the game.

I love zombies. I love post-apocalyptic settings. I really want to love this game.

But after hours, it mostly feels like a very standard Ubisoft-style open world that occasionally remembers it has an interesting story to tell, only to drop it almost as soon as it gets good.