Days Gone Remastered - The Revenge Of Motorcycle Maintenance
- James Stephanie Sterling
- May 2
- 8 min read
Days Gone Remastered
Released: April 25th, 2025
Developer: Bend Studio
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Systems: PS5
Days Gone is nothing if not adequate. It asks very little of its audience, and abundant is its response in kind.
Days Gone Remastered signals my third time playing the bloody thing, having finished it on both PS4 and Steamdeck. There are games I love that I’ve played less than this, but here I am, replaying a game that I’d best describe as “cretinously endearing.”
See, Days Gone is easy.
I’m not talking about difficulty settings - though it’s easy in that sense too - I mean there’s nothing in this dependable set menu of late 2010s “AAA” game design that’ll challenge one’s brain. That’s not a bad thing, even though I can’t help framing it in the most withering, snide way possible when specifically describing this one game.
There’s just something about Days Gone that makes me giddy with sneering mischief.
It’s as reliable a game as ever, a fuss-free blandbox with zombies to shoot, bandit camps to clear, and a story you can regard or disregard to equal effect. I’m playing Clair Obscure at the moment, a brilliantly complex RPG with its mechanical hackles up. Days Gone Remastered has paired surprisingly well with such a rich experience, being the digital equivalent of an antacid.
What you get is an open world dotted with familiar busywork, standardized third-person combat, obligatory “soft” stealth elements, a rudimentary crafting system, trendy Tracker Vision(™), and the sweetest plum of all - a bunch of political posturing that equivocates its way out of taking a real stance on anything. Truly is this game a product of its era.
Over half a decade later, and I still genuinely laugh at Radio Free Oregon and the weird contrast between protagonist Deacon St. John and Mark Copeland.
A toothless portrayal of “truther” wingnuts, Copeland broadcasts his opinions on society’s downfall in such a quaintly inoffensive manner it neither reflects nor satirizes any one belief system. These audio blasts are always refuted by Deacon, whose bitterly sarcastic tone suggests vehement disagreement despite his opinion generally coming down to, “yeah but also kinda nah.”
For added hilarity, one must listen to these when on a bike - Deek’s lines are bellowed while he’s riding, and he comes across like a belligerent maniac yelling into the void. He yells so loudly, but he’s saying nothing. Days Gone never says anything, because it’s a big budget action game from 2019. It’s just trying to look grown up by using big words to communicate fuck-all.
Copeland suggests forced obsolescence has worsened the apocalypse via shoddy products, Deek retorts that nothing’s wrong with some crass commercialism. Copeland talks about how nobody can stop “patriots” like him taking what he wants, Deacon declares yeah, but also life’s bad because of zombies n’ stuff. The writers were careful to keep fire exits wide open for every statement they put in the script.
I love the Radio Free Oregon shit. I sincerely love how banal it is.
Whenever I hear Copeland’s voice, I prepare to be entertained by an adorable pantomime of profundity. It’s extra funny when you consider how the original director is an absolute gammon who’s since decided his vision was too edgy for Woke Game Reviewers.
Mate, you wish your work was controversial, but there are pockets of oxygen with more edge than Days Gone. It’s got so little bite, it has to water down its applesauce. I’d cut my throat on a balloon before I’d find anything half as sharp on Deacon St. John.
Anyway, Days Gone is still Days Gone. The remaster focuses mostly on visual sprucing rather than more tangible improvements, which is a real shame. The original wasn’t exactly a broken mess, but minor breakages were so frequent in their appearance that addressing them should have been a no-brainer.
Naturally, they’ve been left unaddressed.
Buggy interactables are the most glaring problem. Using objects or speaking to NPCs regularly just won’t work, even when the prompt visually confirms your input. Sometimes, Deacon tries to perform an action but his pathfinding gets confused and he staggers around ineffectually. I suppose that makes him reminiscent of the bikers I grew up around.
Controls in general could’ve used tightening up. Deacon feels jittery to move around, melee attacks are hamstrung by a sketchy autolock function, and it takes hours of playing to upgrade ranged combat enough to feel tolerable. On top of that, fighting just isn’t very exciting, since nothing ever feels like it hits with much of an impact.
Other things that needed overhauling include the 2010s Tracker Vision(™) - I don’t think I need to explain why using the same symbol to tag pickups and every single door in the vicinity is ridiculous.
I know not everybody found it as dreary as I did, but I really wish they’d tone down the incessant bike maintenance. Holding a button while quietly watching a man play gas attendant - if his pathfinding even gets him that far - is not my idea of enthralling videogame entertainment.
This wishlist admittedly expects too much from something clearly released for some quick bucks. It’s doing just enough to qualify as a remaster instead of a mere rerelease, so the most glaring and obvious issues are accordingly replicated.
They didn’t even fix the absurd audio balancing issues where Deacon is randomly deafening and NPCs are only slightly louder than literal silence. They didn’t make characters look less like they’re floating when using stairs… or on most flat surfaces. They didn’t improve the enemy AI, although that might be a positive - it’s so extremely pigshit thick it almost takes on a new form of comedic brilliance.
I’m not sure if Photo Mode for Days Gone was a bad idea or the best decision its creators ever made. On the one hand, it exposes how much clipping and physics issues there are with every single in-game action. On the other, it’s fucking hilarious for the same reason. Shame the Photo Mode itself is a particularly bad one, having possibly the worst camera controls I’ve ever wrestled with.
Days Gone Remastered is quite the glitchy affair, moreso than I remember the original being, though maybe I just got lucky back then. Within the first ten minutes, I entered a house to find nothing inside it had spawned except the base interior textures and pickups suspended in thin air. This scenario set the tone for an experience full of visual errors and wonky physics.
The remaster adds a few little extras like audio cues for collectibles and settings to disable QTE nonsense, the latter option originally being tied to easy difficulty. There's a permadeath mode and a speedrun mode if, for some reason, you cannot get enough of this shit. By far the most extensive new feature, and the closest you're getting to fresh content, is Horde Assault.
Horde Assault is a wave-based bit of side corn in which you can play as one of several characters, though the differences between them are purely aesthetic. You explore a map, find upgrades, and deal with increasingly dangerous zombie attacks - y'know, the usual fluff. I'm a big fan of horde modes in general, but considering Days Gone's combat isn't particularly thrilling, a game type hinging entirely on fighting just doesn't appeal. Freaker hordes in the main game benefits from atmospheric context, from the fear of accidentally running into one, and from sections of the map that were explicitly designed to emphasize their size and scariness.
Horde Assault is fine, but not something I felt any need to return to after a couple of goes. Having been fully recycled from existing material, it lacks any custom charm and feels far more lifeless than the base game. You don't unlock compelling rewards, mostly a few additional skins and difficulty modifiers tied to the mode itself, and the pacing is slow enough that the thought of playing further feels like a waste of my time. Horde Assault's perfectly fine as an inclusion, but it's pure filler that certainly doesn't do enough to up the value of a rebuy.
I don’t hate Days Gone, by the way, I just can’t talk about it without sounding like I do. I kind of love it in the most contemptuous way a person could love something. Despite my paradoxical feelings, there are a few things it does that I like with earnest sincerity.
While they’re fairly generic zombie antagonists, Bend Studio's so-called Freakers still create an intimidating sight when grouped together in the massive hordes that Days Gone was first marketed on. Dealing with dozens of scrambling zombies at once can be legitimately tense, especially before you’re kitted out with a bunch of explosives. Luring Freakers toward bandits or Ripper cultists is fun, and I like how quickly you unlock the crossbow bolts that make enemies attack their allies - it's totally game breaking, but I'm a big fan.
More than other videogame zombies, Freakers showcase how clinically disgusting such creatures would be in a way that speaks to my OCD. A big deal is made of how much piss and shit is caked onto the infected, and character reactions to the smell really hammer it home. These former people have absolutely no dignity, and it's an aspect that doesn't come up enough in zombie media. Freaker Nests - the game’s one standout visual - are gross wombs of sticks and rags packed together with pure filth. It’s a great concept, and their placement in existing architecture is very good environmental storytelling.
I wish the creatures that lived in those nests were as interesting. They could have been, there's even dialogue that hints at ways in which the Freakers are evolving into something more diverse and possibly intelligent, but this is Days Gone. Hints of creativity are all you'll be getting.
For all my complaints about maintaining it, the motorcycle does control nicely, and it quickly becomes a trusty, customizable steed. Biking makes one’s time in the world more anxious, since Deek’s still notably vulnerable while riding, and there’s something exhilarating about speeding away from a huge pack of infected just as they're close enough to take a swipe at your back.
While the story isn’t all that brilliant, it’s performed well. A great voice cast is headed up by Sam Witwer, whose gameplay portrayal of Deek makes him sound like he’s close to snapping in a really effective way. He frequently mutters to himself and rambles erratic threats when he kills human enemies, all with an unnervingly strung out tone. Sadly, the actual narrative makes no use of this terrific performance, and cutscenes almost present a different Deacon entirely, with none of the intriguing weirdness. It all amounts to nothing in the end.
That’s just how Days Gone is, though. It never plays outside of the safest margins, refusing to commit to its more interesting ideas for fear of being too creative.
A game with ambitions of ambition, Days Gone highlights how little it pushes the boat out by teasing the existence of a boat to push. It flirts with meaningful themes, teases unique ideas, and then simply settles for an open world of activities to chew on like so much cud. Not even a lot of cud, either - despite the size of the map, it’s remarkable how little there is to do.
Days Gone Remastered is an entirely basic upgrade that feels every bit like an attempt to shake some loose change from a dormant product. I’m sure the original has fans who are less ironic about it than me, but they’re the only people this’ll really speak to. If Days Gone didn’t win over enough people for Sony’s liking the first time, a slightly better looking reproduction probably won’t change matters much.
We’ll always have Radio Free Oregon, though.
“Don’t believe the lies.”
6.5/10
