I picked up Days Gone only recently as it had been a title on my radar since it launched, but with a plethora of titles dating back to PS3 that I was working through, I didn't make it a priority, that was until i incurred a back injury in March did I throw it into the system since I had many weeks to of pain and recovery to go through.
The game tries to be a lot of things and I think some of those things work out well, while in other cases, the game can be bloated and redundant, which, did help distract my mind a bit when dealing with the physical pain. I actually agree with much of the initial Gamespot review, but I think the score of a 5 was unfair and I would honestly give it a 6.75 - 7.25 as a fair rating.
To dive into my reasoning for a higher score, is it gives me an open-world similar to The Last of Us that I wish I could explore more in either of the subsequent games. I loved when TLOU II opened up into vast cities like Seattle to be explored, only to not let the player deviant too far. I actually prefer linear driven games as I'm in it for the story as I don't have much time to play games and balance all the different interests in my life, but it felt wonderful to be able to cruise around on a motorcycle, exploring a gorgeous world, with interesting characters on a quest to try to move forward in one's life in a vicious hellscape. Deacon St. John's motivations might have predominantly not been altruistic (There are plenty of examples of where they are), however, he performs actions for the one's he loves most, for his best friend, for his wife, because he wants to protect them, he wants to work through his grief and try to build a better life. He might not have a profound, vast moral changing of his outlaw ways in his journey, as the game in certain situations is quick to toss away any opposing narrative for a simple "You're right, I was wrong", scenario, from one of the game's leading moral characters, but, it doesn't mean the game is terrible if there isn't some dramatic moral underpinning holding it together. Imagine yourself living in that actual world, your morality might become seemingly as flexible as the protagonists and find yourself with seemingly narrow situations to uphold a moral code and to have a profound, life changing insight that alters your fate. If sticking with the main story line, it provides optimal chance encounters, we see Deacon take the road less traveled that seeks out those experiences that can have a life-changing impact upon our characters. These are more smaller, personal moments between our respective cast, and they are meaningful, which is what absolutely makes the game worth playing.
With that said, there is a lot of bloat that the game could have done without or made more central to the development of the story and it's characters. Doing work for the various camps to earn credits, trust to buy goods and services is an excellent approach, however, most of these jobs having no impact on the story, make it unnecessarily tedious. If you're going to forge alliances with camps, there should be consequences for choosing one over the others. The ability to again additional health stamina, etc, should be linked to XP points, be it through the thousands of zombie creature, human or animal kills. Those two things along would streamline the game down from it's already lengthy playtime and make it a much more meaningful experience. Hell, have the ability to learn skills to repair your bike, craft gun, armor upgrades. Allow for the ability to cook to assist in leveling up and gain abilities. As much as I love destroying hordes of the seemingly undead (and I did to the fullest extent), making the world be available at large by streamlining the game play could have easily made this score an 8 or a 9 out of 10, but getting bogged down running errands for camps that mostly don't have any consequences as challenges that the protagonist must overcome to move forward in their quest, are simply unfulfilling and it becomes a waste of time and money for everyone involved, from the players to the creators, who I give a lot of accolades for creating a world I would love to revisit.
There is a lot to give praise for, the foundation the game has laid for this world is unique and interesting and I want to see the story continue, to the motivations and development for the characters in this and a subsequent entry, can be expanded upon in interesting and amazing ways. We need a Days Gone sequel, period. It must learn from its mistakes though if it is to be a success; get rid of meaningless antagonists, don't throw away the moral high-ground from characters with opposing views, have story-driven reasons a player has to perform jobs for camps, hell, pull-up some Starcraft dynamics and allow for the characters to leads camps to go to war with each other for an added player experience if they so choose, but don't let the heart of this game become washed away with actions that otherwise have no value on the outcome.
I love a great motorcycle ride, both when I'm physical able to do so and in this virtual world. Peel back the layers of some pretty tedious aspects and you'll find a journey worth taking and I can only hope the adventure continues much sooner than later.