There’s no question that one of Sony’s most acclaimed and beloved PlayStation 3 exclusives was Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, to the point where even its PlayStation 4 remaster stands as among the most celebrated games on Sony’s current platform. While we didn’t see a sequel to The Last of Us at Sony’s conference this year (unsurprising, since Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is barely a month old at this point), we did see a brand new PlayStation 4 IP from Uncharted: Golden Abyss developer, Sony Bend, and its inspiration seems to be pretty clear.
It’s not The Last of Us, but Days Gone definitely looks to be aiming for a similarly-crafted experience on PlayStation 4. The brand new game IP takes place in a post-apocalyptic open-world setting within the Pacific Northwest, with the mysterious protagonist being later identified by the PlayStation Blog as a drifter named Deacon St. John. What exactly is wrong with the dead world that Deacon inhabits? Well, it’s suffered a rather large-scale disaster, one that has turned the vast majority of the human population into speedy, ravenous zombie hordes called ‘Freakers’.
How many ‘Freakers’ are there, exactly? Well, there seems to be tons. In fact, Days Gone immediately stands out for the ludicrous amount of zombie models that it renders on-screen at any one time, with nary a single dropped frame! Previously, Xbox One/Windows exclusive, Dead Rising 3 appeared to hold the claim for being able to render the most zombies on-screen at once without any performance issues, but it looks like its record may be broken by Days Gone, which has a literal army of Freakers pouring out to ravage poor Deacon, as he starts cutting them down with machine gun fire. Deacon even sacrifices another survivor to the hordes, proving that he’s a lone wolf that really isn’t above the newly-enforced metaphorical law of the jungle! There’s no young girl to look after this time, but the human element of The Last of Us still seems to be a considerable focus in the dramatic and horror-filled Days Gone.
Days Gone has no release window yet, but unsurprisingly, Sony is marketing it off of the backs of its zombie hordes, with Freakers moving, thinking and attacking as one relentless force! We will continue to monitor development of this promising new IP, so keep hunting Eggplante for all major news and updates on Days Gone.