Days Gone Creative Director Blames Bugs, Reviewers Not Bothering to Play and "Woke" Reviewers For Lack of Better Reception

i remember the game got that "not another zombie game" response from the moment it was announced.
releasing it in a state well below sony 1st party QA bar probably didn't help either.

hearing good things about it generally since then, and supposed run great on ps5 BC

will definitely give it a go, if backlog allows.
 
Weren't the reasons why I didn't play more than five hours.

Dude, take this to your therapist but Twitter is a shithole and you shouldn't use it for that.
 
Wow. I legit got angry at the dog pile from the twitter mob replying to him. They are all trying to gaslight him. It's pathetic. Also makes me fearful as these are writers in our games.
 
Ghost of Caelid said:
Blaming "woke culture" to deflect from the fact your game was mediocre is a new low. A game about a gruff ass father teaching his son to be a man is up for GOTY...you game was just mediocre.
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He did not just blame them. That is the only one out of the 3 you chose to focus on.

They did have an impact on some of the most blatantly obvious reviews, in which they were proven to not even completely 30% of the game. Slacktivist frauds.

If "technical issues" were the main driver on some of them and not their ad nauseum crusade at the height of it all, then there are plenty of games that slipped those criticisms, Cyberpunk being one of them. It was the users that brought it to light, where the "critics" mentioned nothing of the sort.
 
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bender said:
It felt years late to chasing zombie and open world trends, mechanically average and didn't really offer anything new to the genre save for the horde mechanic which wasn't nearly leaned into throughout the game, at least in the twenty or so hours I put into (think I ran into three hordes). I didn't care much for the narrative, characters or motivations but that has little to do with being "woke". On the plus side, the world is lovely. Studio Bend's public comments about the game paint them as really bitter and not willing to face their shortcomings.
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To be fair, it's not Bend Studio its two former disgruntled employees
 
xrnzaaas said:
Agree with how the game was unjustly attacked for having a white male protagonist and a biker wedding scene (without doing any research on that topic and realizing it's "real"). Some reviewers were blind to the fact that the game also featured stuff like diverse characters (including minority female bikers) and just went in with the pitchforks.

As for the bugs and poor performance, the game should've definitely been released in better state. You can only do a good first impression once and not many people cared that the state of the game has greatly improved (on the PS4).
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They even put a lesbian couple and a black "cool guy", but I uppose a lot of people just hate males and aren't really interested in woke culture for the sake of under represented people.
The game is pretty diverse AND with many solid characters.
 
Kacho said:
Critics at major gaming sites lost their shit over that one line about him riding his girlfriend like a bike. lol

This 180 by Greg Miller still cracks me up



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Of course its a 180, because he doesn't think for himself. He is a mindless drone who must follow that ideological line. FFS, he kicked out his "best friend" because a mild joke and tried to ruin his life. Fuck this little weasel.
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
They were done dirty by their own staff. Not expecting much from their next game when all the worker ants want to be queens.
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Yep. Last we heard, it wasn't Sony that would not greenlight a sequel. The game was successful in sales and Sony gave them the choice. The staff tucked their tails and chose something else instead of building upon that success.

Now we have a stupid cliffhanger with all that Syphon Filter crossover that we might not see a conclusion to.
 
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Game was mediocre.

To be honest, the only people I've EVER seen give this game any praise just happen to also be hardcore TLOU2 haters. Like it goes hand in hand. Not a coincidence
 
Ghost of Caelid said:
Blaming "woke culture" to deflect from the fact your game was mediocre is a new low. A game about a gruff ass father teaching his son to be a man is up for GOTY...you game was just mediocre.
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It's clearly selective. Equating TLOU in 2013 pre great wokening, or Kratos (played by a black actor btw) to Deacon in current year just doesn't make sense.

Let's not get started on the numerous reviews and tweets from "critics" that explicitly talk about Deacon's "gruff white guy"-ness as a negative.
 
How about just shipping a better game next time and stop living in the past.

Tech issues, bloated gameplay, mediocre story .... the list goes on. The woke narrative is nonsense, the game just wasn't that great and that was it.

Looks like he deleted the tweet ... :messenger_grinning_smiling:. IDK what he was thinking.
 
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I blame the massive amounts of input lag, the atrocious aiming controls, the dogshit open world design and the awful bike controls...

but that's just me.

the PS5 patch fixed the aiming at least somewhat because due to the 60fps the input latency is reduced significantly and the added gyro aim it got months after launch work well now
 
Forgot to write my thoughts on it: The issue with Days Gone wasn't that it was a bad game - it was damn good. It offered a lot of variety and choice, with a good engaging story, memorable characters, and excellent aesthetics. It was just TOO DAMN LONG.

Which honestly is an issue for most of Sony's first-party line up. You could cut almost every "Cinematic Third Person Action/Adventure/Shooter" they release in half and they would all be better for it.
 
DeepEnigma said:
Well, if it was the coders, bug, and performance that was the issue, and everything they designed never changed... then yeah, it falls on the technical side of the team. However, designers are more expendable than even mediocre coders with experience.
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Let coders design a game 🤣
 
Trazyn the Infinite said:
Forgot to write my thoughts on it: The issue with Days Gone wasn't that it was a bad game - it was damn good. It offered a lot of variety and choice, with a good engaging story, memorable characters, and excellent aesthetics. It was just TOO DAMN LONG.

Which honestly is an issue for most of Sony's first-party line up. You could cut almost every "Cinematic Third Person Action/Adventure/Shooter" they release in half and they would all be better for it.
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What was odd about this game, I felt that about 2/3rds through, but then there was a point in the game where I never wanted it to end. Was odd, lol. Felt the same with GoWR. I got over a certain hump, can't exactly pinpoint it, but as it was coming to the climax, I didn't want it to end.

One thing you can say, they give you your money's worth for single player, especially compared to when games were only 8-10 hours for $60 quid 2 gens ago. Gamers are partially to blame as well, since the whole trend of judging game length to price ratio back then too.
 
He hid his twitter? Lol if you felt brave enough to start complaining on twitter, why chicken out after getting responses?
 
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bender said:
The game was rough technically when it launch on PS4 and was improved through patching. The state of the game was much different by the time it released on PC. We also see large deltas between critics and users fairly often.
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The PS4 user rating is 8.4.

Typically you see user review averages way below what critics give out.
 
Vick said:
Put some glasses on next time:

jurn-daysgonedlkjx.jpg



Dude, this is the majority's opinion on the game. If you don't believe me just look at this Thread:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/boug...ouls-but-cant-stop-playing-days-gone.1580111/

I've never seen this level of appreciation for a non-multiplatform game on GAF, ever.


Oh, God forbid having survival, meaningful and unpredictable elements in a survival open world..
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TBH, if they had a more naturalistic portrayal of biker culture they probably wouldn't have been assaulted by these types of ideologically motivated reviewers over non-issues like Deacon appreciating his own wife's looks. But the game does try very hard to turn a biker gang archetype into a hyper-virtuous and sanitized white knight figure while preserving the biker façade. When you do that, any outlier attributes, like a smallest glint of sexuality, will stand out like a sore thumb to the people you're trying to placate. These types don't go after Game of Thrones or Euphoria for their un-PC product--not with zeal, anyway. They go after the ideologically aligned stuff that's trying too hard but not jumping through the prerequisite hoops genuinely enough, like we saw with the backlash toward CoD: Vanguard.
 
DForce said:
Yeah, I'm sure we never see a female character beat up a guy in a movie or video game before. And loses utterly at the end? What are you talking about? lol

Nadine Ross was also hired by Rafe and she wasn't a real antagonist if you were actually paying attention to the story. And having set up a sequel with Nathan Drake's daughter would feel completely different than him having a son because it would just basically be the same character.

Things make sense if you're not looking to complain about things being "woke".
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It's a weird thing with me. I do not think that him having a daughter is woke, nor would I be annoyed if she succeeded him in a game series of her own, but I also do not think I would want Neil Cuckmann to be the one to write the game, either.
 
DeepEnigma said:
What was odd about this game, I felt that about 2/3rds through, but then there was a point in the game where I never wanted it to end. Was odd, lol. Felt the same with GoWR. I got over a certain hump, can't exactly pinpoint it, but as it was coming to the climax, I didn't want it to end.
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I did reach that point in Days Gone, but not so much in GoWR.

I think it is around the time you finally get almost everything for your kit and are pretty well upgraded so you can just have fun with the systems.

DeepEnigma said:
One thing you can say, they give you your money's worth for single player, especially compared to when games were only 8-10 hours for $60 quid 2 gens ago. Gamers are partially to blame as well, since the whole trend of judging game length to price ratio back then too.
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Definitely don't want 8-10 hour campaigns, unless they are heavily replayable like a Capcom game. But I will say I do wish they were more 15-20 hours instead of 30-60 like so many tend to be these days.
 
SlimySnake said:
The PS4 user rating is 8.4.

Typically you see user review averages way below what critics give out.
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I just don't find a lot of value in comparing user reviews to critic reviews. There are just too many mitigating factors. (truth be told, I don't find a lot of value in either, but I'd weigh users reviews the least valuable).

For your second statement, that's largely dependent on genre.
 
EviLore said:
The game was pretty good, but the writing and narrative drive had issues. After spending many hours tracking down his wife's whereabouts and uncovering their detailed backstory, (minor mid-game spoilers) Deacon and his wife finally reunite. But she doesn't care at all that he's alive. They then put Deacon through endless demeaning encounters with her while she berates him and he acts like a doormat. He continues chasing her and sacrifices everything at every turn to try to get her to pay attention to him again.

No doubt this is how interpersonal relationships work for people in the gaming industry, but it didn't exactly fit for this tough as nails post-apocalyptic biker.
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Almost my exact experience, with the game. Once Deacon found Sarah, I was ready for them to escape and finish the game. Really didn't like the story after that point.
 
ProtoByte said:
It's clearly selective. Equating TLOU in 2013 pre great wokening, or Kratos (played by a black actor btw) to Deacon in current year just doesn't make sense.

Let's not get started on the numerous reviews and tweets from "critics" that explicitly talk about Deacon's "gruff white guy"-ness as a negative.
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Kratos actor being black doesn't take away from the fact that a story that is traditional in values still is up for game of the year. If a game is quality it will be praised even if the message isn't "woke". Deacon was a boring character. Had nothing to do with his race/hobby.
 
Outlier said:
Almost my exact experience, with the game. Once Deacon found Sarah, I was ready for them to escape and finish the game. Really didn't like the story after that point.
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The iron mike camp was the strongest part of the story. The game drags towards the end.
 
I got into Death Stranding eventually due to positive reception (it took a second - I can't see myself ever getting into Days Gone..

I found little enjoyment in the moment from moment gameplay.

Edit: I really wanted to like this game, and everything the woke crowd hated about this game was bullshit on their part.
 
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Outlier said:
Almost my exact experience, with the game. Once Deacon found Sarah, I was ready for them to escape and finish the game. Really didn't like the story after that point.
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I do agree with that. Some of those scenes had my emotions the opposite of Deacon's in those scenes. He displayed far more tact and patience, lol.
 
The game is just mediocre but anyone saying there is no woke game reviewers just has to look at the fact that resetera exists.
 
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Swift_Star said:
Blah blah blah blah "everything I don't agree with is woke"
Sleep Yawn GIF
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Dude you literally have a collage of shitty woke opinions in this very topic, maybe take a look before dismissing stuff you don't know about.

Many times the woke excuse is stupid like you said, but the mongol...i mean the journalist were particularly mad at this game for reason that have nothing to do with anything else other than mental illness.
 
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touchfuzzy said:
Man you hear an extraordinary amount about Days Gone online for an average-ish 4 year old single player game.
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I bet a good amount of the chatter stems from the PS+ collection for PS5.

For me personally, it went from day 1 to wait for sales after the reviews panned it. Then I decided to wait for it to be on PS+. Then I got it for free, but at the time I would only play new gen games for a while. But after realizing they patched in 60 FPS for PS5 players, I have been giving the older games on the collection that I missed a chance. And now I want a sequel.
 
damidu said:
i remember the game got that "not another zombie game" response from the moment it was announced.
releasing it in a state well below sony 1st party QA bar probably didn't help either.

hearing good things about it generally since then, and supposed run great on ps5 BC

will definitely give it a go, if backlog allows.
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Yeah, I remember this dropping and thinking the amount of zombies onscreen and that tech looked neat. But everything else looked pretty boring on the surface. A very "been there done that" kind of feeling. Nothing really grabbed me at all. This is coming from someone that really loved zombies before and until it was brutally beaten over our heads. The deep sigh from gamers at yet ANOTHER zombie game was pretty damn loud at the time.

I still want to give it a shot, I think I may have already nabbed it on the cheap for PC.

That being said, I don't really think his "reasons" have any real weight to them. Maybe for some sources/journalist, but they don't affect the quality of a game. I've heard people say the game is good, but I don't think I've met anyone that praised the hell out of it.
 
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Got it at launch and played like eight hours max and it was just so... dull. The thing is, I don't think any part of the game was bad, it's just that nothing was good either. Probably the best definition I can think of a game which is average in every way possible.
 
DeepEnigma said:
And what did they do in the sequel as all this progressed? Had a buff chick kill Joel and a Neil looking manbun spitting on his corpse.
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Meh. It's all about nuance.

Yes, it is true that Abby is overly, unrealistically muscular and also unrealistically able to square off with men 1.5x her weight in unarmed CQC. No, that probably wouldn't have happened if the game was conceived 10 years ago. It's also true that Abby is not portrayed as a good person.
Yes, Mr. Neilbun spat on Joel's corpse. He also get's no scoped through the eye by Joel's brother.

The "wokest" element to me was Lev and the Seraphites. The whole thing was like one of those crappy YA novels they're shooting out these days, seen from Abby's perspective. Especially the ending with Lev's mother.
The Seraphites are traditionalists in every way, down to arranged marriage forced on young girls and yet women are on the frontlines of battle and it ain't just a few. Very forced.

Ghost of Caelid said:
Kratos actor being black doesn't take away from the fact that a story that is traditional in values still is up for game of the year. If a game is quality it will be praised even if the message isn't "woke". Deacon was a boring character. Had nothing to do with his race/hobby.
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No no no. We're not doing this.
For one thing, it's worth understanding that Cory Barlog has made an effort to be on the good side of the leftist establishment in games media. For another, again, go look up the reviews and tweets for yourself. The number that refer to Deacon's race is higher than you think. It was damn near Iron Fist levels.
 
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Really liked the game... but zero trans/gay/gender issues been discussed is a no no in my books.. at least give me a brilliant "bigot sandwich" line so I can give it a 10/10 and all the awards
 
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