REVIEW: Days Gone for PC arrives with good optimization

Days Gone for PC is the third PlayStation 4 exclusive game to hit computers. After the frenzy of Death Stranding and the surprise of Horizon Zero Dawn, the latest game from Bend Studio shows that it came to the platform with a great technical whim.

a copy of Days Gone for PC was kindly sent by NVIDIA for the preparation of this review, and after a few days of gameplay here's our analysis of the title.

Sony seems to be really committed to bringing more of their existing console projects into the computer world and that's excellent news. Death Stranding, although it is a very divisive game, it is unanimous when we talk about a good performance. Horizon Zero Dawn, in turn, already pleases a higher average of players, but its release was a real headache.

Days Gone came with quite a mission: to try to balance a good technical experience on keyboard and mouse, while also serving as an expressive narrative title. The big problem is that the game manages to fulfill the first role very well, but since the PS4 it has suffered numerous criticisms for being just another zombie game in the midst of such a saturated theme.

Two guys on a motorcycle

Days Gone starts as the costume says. The game starts with a cinematic of a few minutes with our protagonist Deacon, your great friend Boozer and your wife Sarah, with a wound to the belly, fleeing what appeared to be the beginning of a “zombie apocalypse”. In an attempt to save her, Deacon finds a helicopter about to take off, however, the aircraft was already at the maximum load limit, forcing the protagonist to make a decision: board with his wife and leave his friend or leave her alone. and help Boozer survive against hordes of creatures.

Deacon leaves Sarah under medical care and teams up with Boozer, who begin the gameplay few years in the near future. Both are great bikers and much of the plot will have a fast motorcycle as a means of locomotion. In a simple way, Days Gone tells the story of these two characters while remembering important events in the lives of Deacon and his wife through flashbacks.

Because it is a world devastated by zombies, survival, losses, etc., Days Gone can give the impression that it wants to be a The Last of Us 2.0 from Sony. However, this does not happen and the game's proposal is different, although the formula may seem the same.

In addition, the game's story is simple and straightforward, most of the time. However, it is shallow, without depth or great depth. We shouldn't start playing Days Gone with the intention of experiencing a complex narrative work, with numerous layers or nuances. For me, it's all just a patched-up background for us to know about the life story of the protagonists and, of course, having fun killing zombies.

If the narrative is weak, on the other hand the development of the character arcs is very good. The friendship between Deacon and Boozer passes a good natural in the first 40 minutes of gameplay and convinces that there are palatable characters with personality. Mainly Deacon, played precisely by Sam Widower, which takes a sarcastic and very charismatic tone to the protagonist.

However, something inside me still insists on expressing that Days Gone doesn't just stand with its protagonist. He needed more and unfortunately the apathetic script doesn't offer much. Main quests are boring clichés and particularly I'm a big lover of clichés, but when done right. Side quests are as empty as the infected brains of our opponents.

The Land of the Free once again devastated…

It is normal to see in certain media how the Americans are proud to say that their country enjoys the irrefutable freedom of its citizens and Days Gone even touches on this subject briefly in some dialogues. What a great counterpoint, “the freest country in the world” suffering from the pains of imprisonment and survival of those who are still human.

The word freedom was a great asset of the games industry in the past decade as it developed more and more open world games. The big problem is that as time went by, these open maps gained increasingly larger proportions each year and generally the size was accompanied by tedious activities, without meaning or variety. With Days Gone for PC this is not so different.

The game's open world takes place in the state of Oregon and the map is relatively extensive. To be honest, there's even a lot to do, but the pace of the campaign doesn't help the player's saga of exploration. Luckily, the game triumphs in one central aspect: our motorcycle.

Moving around the world is done by a motorcycle, which can be customized and improved by collecting car parts. This introduces a simple collection of loot: Just enter abandoned house, buildings or facilities and pick up the maximum amount of supplies. It is practically mandatory to open each vehicle's hood and trunk to find parts, which will serve to give the upgrade on the motorcycle.

The player needs to be aware of the fact that the bike wears out over time, needing repairs, but mainly because it naturally needs fuel to run. To find this item, just keep exploring and manage your resources. In the end, the motorcycle is a faithful squire for your journey and is essential to escape hordes and hordes of enemies thirsty for human flesh.

the enemies

Speaking of enemies, we encountered both normal zombies on our journey and equally dangerous human threats. The player needs to know how to manage his backpack of items, as the ammunition is slightly scarce for the amount of opponents that challenge us.

And here comes another problem. Days Gone was announced with one big gimmick: the hordes with hundreds of zombies raging behind our biker. The reveal trailer emphasized this, the promotional images, the publicity material, etc. And indeed, the hordes do exist and many of them are quite large.

However, these “events” happen very rarely throughout the campaign and the best of them is precisely the one in the first trailer. The rest is entertaining and provides a good dose of tension and nervousness, but the limited number of times it occurs ends up moving away from the original vision of what had been promised. (https://yourolddog.com/) This wasn't, for me, necessarily such a bad aspect, but just that it left something to be desired and gave the impression that it could have been executed better.

a fun gameplay

If so far Days Gone for PC hasn't achieved such good reviews, it's definitely yours. gameplay is one of the highlights of the title. There are no major innovations or a revolution in gameplay, but it's fun and concise.

Mobility with the bike is good and simple, and the third-person perspective helps to create a more “arcade” tone for the game, without much concern about looking like a game based on exaggerated realism. The arsenal of weapons is good and extensive, there are many mind and an intuitive creation system. Simply collect inputs, press Q, open the selection wheel, and create a Molotov cocktail to burn through hordes of enemies.

Generally, games modeled for consoles suffer from poorly made ports to computers, but Days Gone for PC luckily it has good keyboard and mouse responsiveness. At first it was a little strange to me, but after a few hours things became fluid enough.

As I said before, Days Gone doesn't go overboard with ammo, so one of the best ways to end the game is to resort to stealth. The player can crouch in thickets or bushes to avoid detection and attack enemies from behind with a single, fatal blow. This actually works well thanks to the average artificial intelligence of the enemies, which I liked.

The second biggest trick is to explore very well all the corners to find parts, including those that also serve as silencers. The use of a silencer, which wears out with a few shots, is essential to not draw the attention of dozens of enraged enemies, as is the use of baseball bats, machetes, pieces of wood, etc.

The performance we wanted

In our Death Stranding PC review, the game behaved in an exemplary way in the tests and was a delight for NVIDIA card owners, as it contains the DLSS feature. Horizon Zero Dawn is a problematic port with poor optimization for PCs, especially in its very troubled launch.

Days Gone for PC is luckily very well optimized. Although the game does not contain ultra-realistic graphics, the game is very beautiful, especially in the specific CGs of very important scenes, but also in cutscenes less elaborate. The modeling of the characters is very well done, while the quality of textures, lighting and shadows of the scenarios do not present great merits.

Days Gone for PC did not have its lighting built with Ray Tracing and it seems that this option should not reach the game. DLSS is still a mystery, but apparently it shouldn't be included in the title any time soon. Even so, the game is well-optimized enough.

In our tests we used two simple configurations, with an Intel Core i5-6600 processor, 16GB of RAM, an RX 480 8GB and a GTX 1650 SUPER. In both scenarios the video cards did well, even with an older CPU like this. O gameplay it was smooth at around 60 frames with the quality setting between medium and high in Full HD.

For owners of 4-core processors, it is good to be aware when facing large hordes of zombies, as the high processing load can compromise the frame rate. The 16GB of RAM also continues to be the most viable option for games, as this title even consumes 10GB at times.

I believe that the other entry-level video cards will handle Days Gone for PC without major problems. However, to prevent, just consult the specification table:

Days Gone PC Minimum Requirements

• Operational system: Windows 10 (64 bits)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K 3,3 GHz or AMD FX 6300 3,5 GHz
• RAM memory: 8 GB
• Video card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB or AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
• DirectX: 11
• Storage: 70 GB available (SSD recommended)

Recommended PC requirements for Days Gone

• Operational system: Windows 10 (64 bits)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K 3,5 GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X 3,5 GHz
• RAM memory: 16 GB
• Video card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
• DirectX: 11.
• Storage: 70 GB available (SSD recommended)

Conclusion

Sony's initiative to bring more exclusives to new platforms and attract more and more audiences will benefit many players and is certainly the movement we can expect to see in new games, like Ghost of Tsushima and maybe even Bloodborne. At the moment there is nothing confirmed yet, but I am happy to know that the PC still remains an excellent platform to play any type of game.

The big problem with the new stage of this initiative is that although Days Gone for PC has arrived with a great optimization, the game has more problems than positive points. Deacon's charisma and fun gameplay doesn't inhibit the inevitable. The final balance is not favorable and conditions a poor and boring experience, as Days Gone It is a categorically generic and unsalted game.

Days Gone for PC is available for purchase at Steam for R$199,90.

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