Days Gone PS4 preview: Zombie survival game is looking good

Maybe even better than that.Back at E3 2016, when Sony Bend first demonstrated its post-apocalyptic open-world survival game, I thought it was just plain silly. As action heroes go, he’s fine, even if he feels a bit like a relic of years gone by. It’s worth recalling that Sony Bend has been working on this game for more than five years, and a lot has changed since its inception.In the last few years, the fashion has moved away from overly familiar pissed-off mid-30s white-man protagonists. “In the early development of Days Gone, we didn’t realize how long the player would spend with this character before he starts regaining his humanity. Sony Bend insists that the zombie-like enemies in Days Gone aren’t zombies, even if they look and behave a lot like zombies. Although some parts of the game include single-route action sequences, other combat areas are built with variety in mind.Focus is one of three meters (along with endurance and health) in Days Gone. I’ve played with a lot of combat wheels, and this one feels like it’s been designed with due care and attention.When I fight, I try to save my ammo, relying on easily craftable bolts for my crossbow or takedowns. It’s a brave decision, I think, to include post-apocalyptic kids not merely as side-character victims, but as adversaries with their own patterns of behavior, loosely modeled on the way kids behave in the real world. These interactions make me feel like I’m living in a realistically challenging environment, where survival depends on making difficult choices.