Peak one of the best open-world story zombie games I’ve played. It’s worth it. Just give it a chance you’ll like it.

There are plenty of zombie games on the market already, and this game had to try something special to stand out. Days Gone has it. While Dying Light has awesome weapon crafting and parkour, Days Gone stands out with its massive hordes.

It has now been a few years since the game originally came out, and I definitely recommend it if you're looking for some mindless fun. However, it is a hit or miss for me at some points in the game. The TLDR is that Days Gone is a zombie game with a unique spin on it, and a story and set of characters that have potential, though it's not fully utilized in my opinion.

Positives:
- Hordes are fun to tackle, though I preferred accidentally stumbling into them instead of the hordes appearing on the map.
- Very pleased to note that even with dozens of enemies on the screen, my FPS never dropped below 70 on my modest gaming PC. Meanwhile, games that have come out in 2025 can struggle on my PC when I'm fighting more than three enemies at once.
- I enjoyed the overall gameplay and (bike) driving mechanics. Driving can be a chore at first, you really gotta upgrade the bike for better speed, traction and damage resistance, but all in all it was solid to me.
- There's NG+ and challenges, there's plenty of replayability. I've finished the game at 40 hours but that's my first playthrough. I'll probably go through it again once or twice and get over 100 hours of play time.
- I liked the camps.

Negatives:
- Deacon's huffing and puffing and [heavy breathing] makes sense during horde fights, or fights in general, but my god this man can barely get through a sentence without a [HEAVY PANT] before the line. Even when he's just sauntering towards another character and nothing action-oriented is happening. I suppose I wasn't bothered enough to make me stop playing, but I know I'm not the only one who's not a big fan of the way Deacon was voice acted, and there *is* an option to turn all dialogue off in the game. It's crazy, because Sam Witwer is really not a bad voice actor at all.
- I did say I liked the driving, but I would've loved it more if it had controller vibration. The only feedback you feel in the controller is if you're crossing a bridge but I wouldn't have minded continuous vibration (or at least the option to toggle it off and on).
- Personally, I wasn't a fan of how the story panned out. With the way Deacon was voice acted I thought the story was leading up to him losing grip on reality and needing his friends to pull him back, but that's not really how it turned out.

I think if we would've gotten a Days Gone 2, the developers had enough material to make it even better than the first. I would've liked more character depth in the sequel (for instance, more interactive conversations with the NPCs at camp to make it more lively) and cosmetic stuff like more outfits for Deacon. Unfortunately this is probably going to be the one and only entry, but it's still an enjoyable game. They left enough for a potential sequel, but the story also wrapped up enough to feel satisfying enough.

If you’re into open-world adventure games, this is absolutely worth a try.

Single-player focused
Light survival elements
  • Bike fuel & repairs
  • Weapon maintenance
  • Health & stamina management
  • Foraging
  • Crafting (consumables, crossbow bolts, melee weapons)
Stealth gameplay alongside combat
Day / night cycle that genuinely changes how the game feels
Can get properly hectic, which is exactly what you want from a zombie game
Recommended difficulty: Hard minimum (anything below feels too easy)
Compared to State of Decay 2, this is far better as a single-player experience
Also includes a more intense Survival mode

Overall:
Gunplay — solid
Melee — good
Story — not too bad
Characters — good
World — solid
Driving — solid
Music — solid
Graphics — solid
Immersion — solid

If you like tension, atmosphere, and being kept on edge, Days Gone is well worth your time.