What We Know So Far
Optimistically speaking, Days Gone feels like the culmination of a zombie sub-genre that places an emphasis on crowd density. It's the main reason for the successes of Capcom's Dead Rising series, and veteran developer Bend Studio is looking to take this sub-genre to new places with vast open settings and more aggressive undead. Its wholly effective debut at last year's PlayStation press conference showed masses of zombies that moved so cohesively in their brainlust that they often appeared like one fluid entity. Meanwhile, its narrative relies on classic zombie genre underpinnings where humans struggle to survive while continuing to find reasons to live. And the key to staying alive involves resourcefulness at every level, from using the environment to take out zombies en masse to scavenging for resources.
Days Gone is being developed exclusively for the PS4, and will include PS4 Pro enhancements.
Here's a list of articles with details of what has been confirmed thus far:
- Days Gone - Why We're Excited About the Return of Bend Studio
- In PS4's Days Gone, There Are Many Ways to Take Out Zombie Hordes
- Surviving a Zombie Infested World in Days Gone at E3 2016
- Days Gone Trailer and Gameplay Reactions at E3 2016
- PS4-Exclusive Days Gone Has Ridiculously Huge Swarms of Zombies
What's Confirmed For E3
As of yet, nothing has been confirmed for E3.
What We Hope To See At E3
The best case scenario is that E3 will present the first hands-on opportunity and reveal the release date. We also hope to see other aspects of the open world beyond what was shown last year. In other words, what is there to do in Days Gone beyond just defending yourself against a swarm of zombies? The worst case scenario is that it doesn't appear at the expo at all, hands-on or otherwise.
If Bend Studio plays its cards right, the game could be the kind of coming out party where they exit from the shadow of Syphon Filter, the series the studio is best known for. It's a notable achievement that another Sony studio, Guerrilla Games, recently pulled off. That developer proved its prowess outside of the Killzone franchise, namely with this year's Horizon: Zero Dawn.