[E3 2016] Days Gone challenges what it means to be the last of us

Zombies are still in. That’s been known over the past five years, but that there are still plenty of brand new games announced in the genre during this year’s E3 is almost creating a tipping point. I realize that there are advantages to the use of the undead — we’re finally done with Nazis, and we technically aren’t shooting humans — but if mishandled, the shambling corpses can lead to a similarly shambling game experience.

Days Gone, Sony Bend’s first new IP in years, looks to buck that trend. These zombies (or freakers, rather) are quick, they want to tear us apart, and there are thousands of them.

During an extended demo at the show, we were witness to what could make the game a much more modern experience. Where its Playstation stablemate The Last of Us resolved conflict with sneaking, hiding, and a very specific set of skills, Days Gone opts to give us a sandbox. Apart from running, we can do whatever it takes to get out of trouble.

The demo (part of which you can witness in the trailer above) pushes a lite narrative in order to get us to the action. We’re looking for a man named Two Dog, whom we quickly find out doesn’t like us very much, and arrive at a farm hot on his trail. A quick scuffle later and we fall off of the roof of a building, with Tow Dog becoming freaker chow.

That’s where the plot seems to end as we are now on the defensive, running as fast as we can to keep away from the marathon-running plague of infected behind us. The environment is contextual, too, meaning that if we come to close to something our protagonist Deacon St John will push his hand off of it or shift his body. As we come across buildings and obstacles, we can climb under, over, or through anything to get away, unloading with our automatic weapon on anything that gets close.

And boy do they get close. I almost wonder if the demo available is a bit gimped, as the freakers get just close enough for us to feel their breath but never actually on top of us. In fact, the only time we interact with them (outside of filling them with bullets) is during specific sequences that ask us to tap X or Square in the correct order and push them away. This happens once or twice in the demo, but most of the time we’re just shooting, shooting, shooting. And shooting.

It’s amazing we never run out of bullets, though. Again, at least in this demo Days Gone seems a bit nerfed when it comes to that true “survival” aspect of what is typical of the genre. There’s a lot more action involved, as we need to obliterate the massive horde that follows us. There are more zombie (freaker) deaths in the demo alone than there are in just about any other similar genre game, including Left 4 Dead.

The most interesting aspect of the game, apart from the endless spaces to run and the equally endless supply of enemies converging on us, is perhaps the crafting aspect. The game features recipes that we can acquire to help us create weapons, tools, and items we may need. A few bottles lie about in one of the barns, which leads us to create molotov cocktails on the fly and throw at the creatures.

I guess that’s where perhaps the demo isn’t as great as the final game may very well end up being. Things are far too fast — weapon crafting, reloading, freaker speed —  that any moment of pause becomes awkward. In one section, Deacon knocks over a pile of planks to block a hole in a wall behind him, giving him time to stop, get up, walk around the room and collect items. The ghouls are quite literally pressed so hard up against the windows that it’s amazing they don’t spill over into the barn. It feel very out of place in a game that deals with so much movement.

At least we’ll have motorcycles. Bend reiterated to us that the use of bikes is an important element in the game, lending credo to the who biker aesthetic.

With a 2017 release in the plans, Days Gone could be the big zombie game to shift away from Last of Us for the PS4. And with some interesting elements and a focus on motion, it may end up a fun, albeit tense, romp in the post-apocalypse.