'Days Gone 2' Teased As Studio Director Talks Plans For Sequel
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Featured Image Credit: Sony
When Days Gone launched earlier this year, it was to positive sales but fairly muted critical reception. Sony Bend's PS4 exclusive certainly had its fair share of promising ideas, but ultimately fell victim to its bland open world and dull writing. Having said that, I reckon there was enough potential in there to warrant a sequel. One that would, hopefully, address the problems of its predecessor and establish itself as another classic Sony IP.
The good news is that it seems Sony Bend Director Chris Reese agrees. Speaking to GamesRadar at the Golden Joysticks (where Days Gone won the award for Best Storytelling), Reese said that the team had every intention of further exploring the game's world.
"Oh yeah, it is certainly a passion of ours, and that's what we've always wanted to do," Reese said. "This is a world that we want to keep breathing more life into, and explore many, many different avenues. So who knows, we'll see!"
Obviously, this isn't direct confirmation that Days Gone 2 is in development, but it's an encouraging sign for anyone hoping for a return trip to the moody biker VS zombie franchise. We already know that Sony Bend is currently hiring staff to work on its next project, which is widely believed to be a PS5 title.
Sony Bend's lighting lead Jeremy Vickery updated his LinkedIn work experience a few months back to include a reference to his work on Days Gone, which also noted that the studio's next project has reached the pre-development stage. Whether or not that PS5 title ends up being a sequel to Days Gone remains to be seen, but Reese's passion and the original game's sales would likely make Days Gone 2 a no-brainer for Sony.
A next-gen follow-up would certainly deliver on some of the ambition that the original game couldn't quite deliver on - at least in theory. In our review at the time, we said that Days Gone wasn't quite the showstopping Sony exclusive people had been hoping for.
"Days Gone is a hodgepodge of sub-par story telling, decent combat and apathetic world building," wrote Mark Foster in his 6/10 review. "While the game is by no means unplayable, it is a victim of Sony's massive success in the market of single player, story driven games, falling short of the lofty standards these titles are usually held to."
In other words, it was hardly up there with the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn and Marvel's Spider-Man. Hopefully the sequel can reach those heights. We'll have to wait and see.
