Quick answer: One of the widest critic and player splits in modern gaming. Critics gave it 71 on Metacritic with only 54% recommending it. Players gave it 8.5 and a 92% positive rating on Steam. That 71 is reportedly the reason Sony turned down a sequel, which the game's own creative director confirmed. A PS5 remaster landed on 25 April 2025 and scored 78, and the PC version got the same new content as a $10 add-on.
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
Days Gone is an open world survival game about a bounty hunter called Deacon St. John riding a motorbike through a ruined Pacific Northwest. Bend Studio spent around six years on it. Sony shipped it on 26 April 2019. Critics shrugged.
Then something unusual happened. The audience kept growing, the score kept climbing, and seven years later this is a game with a devotion most 90-rated releases never earn. It is also the clearest example in the industry of a review average deciding a studio's future, and that is the part worth your time.
Nobody agrees about this game. Nobody ever has.
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
| Version | Critics | Players |
|---|---|---|
| PS4, 2019 | 71, "Mixed", 109 reviews. OpenCritic 72 with only 54% recommending | 8.5 across 13,000+ ratings |
| PC, 2021 | 76, 47 reviews | 8.7, and 92% positive on Steam across more than 80,000 reviews |
| PS5 Remastered, 2025 | 78. OpenCritic 81, 74% recommending, top 17% of all games | 8.8 |
Read that bottom row against the top one. Same game, same missions, same script, reviewed three times across six years, and the critical verdict moved from 71 to 78 while the recommendation rate went from 54% to 74%. Some of that is genuine improvement through patches and the remaster. A lot of it is the 2019 reviews having been written about a launch build with real technical problems, by people playing it on deadline, in a year when everyone was tired of zombies.
One caveat on that climb. Fewer outlets review a game each time it is re-released. The original drew over 100 reviews, the PC port 47, and the remaster fewer still. A smaller sample tends to be made up of people who already liked the thing. The improvement is real, but part of the gap is just arithmetic.
The 71 is why there is no Days Gone 2
This is not fan speculation. In April 2021, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reported that Bend Studio pitched a sequel and Sony turned it down, citing the mixed reception and the long development. Director Jeff Ross confirmed a pitch had existed, and said the plan involved a shared universe with co-op, something the original could not support on the staff it had.
Creative director John Garvin put it more bluntly, saying that at Sony "Metacritic score is everything", and that a creative director whose game lands on a 70 will not stay a creative director for long. A fan petition for a sequel passed 112,000 signatures. It did not matter.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 26 Apr 2019 | PS4 launch after roughly six years of development and several delays. Second best-selling game in North America that month |
| 9 Apr 2021 | Bloomberg reports the sequel pitch was rejected. Bend is moved onto a new project instead |
| 18 May 2021 | PC release on Steam and Epic. A genuinely good port, and the version that built the game's reputation. GOG followed in October 2023 |
| 25 Apr 2025 | Days Gone Remastered on PS5, built with Climax Studios, with the same new content reaching PC as the Broken Road DLC on the same day |
| Jun 2025 | Bend Studio loses around 30% of its staff, roughly 40 people, after its live-service project was cancelled |
Sales are the one number you should not trust from anybody. Ross originally said eight million by late 2020 and nine million overall, then admitted his source was a trophy-tracking website that has since shut down, which counts players rather than copies. Other reporting puts it near 7.3 million by early 2022, plus over a million on Steam. It sold well. It did not sell the way a headline of "nine million" implies, and a large share of it moved at deep discount.
If you want the other side of how publishers read these numbers, our Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales review covers a PlayStation exclusive that landed on the right side of the same maths.
What the remaster actually added
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
The hordes were always the thing Days Gone did that nothing else did. Hundreds of Freakers moving as one mass, flowing around terrain, forcing you to plan an escape route before you even make noise. The remaster builds a whole mode out of that.
- Horde Assault, a survival arcade mode with scoring and leaderboards, pushing up to 800 Freakers on screen at once. Bend put it at roughly 10 extra hours, and it includes characters you could never play as before
- Permadeath, where dying sends you back to the start of the game or the start of Act 2
- Speedrun mode with a timer
- Enhanced photo mode, new accessibility options, DualSense haptics, and PS5 Pro support
Read this before you pay for the upgrade. The $10 PS4 to PS5 upgrade has two traps. If you own Days Gone on disc, you need a PS5 with a disc drive and you must insert the disc every time. If you claimed the game through PlayStation Plus, you are not eligible for the $10 upgrade at all and have to buy the remaster outright. On PC there is no upgrade confusion: you already own the base game, and the new modes are the Broken Road DLC for $10.
The criticisms, honestly
The 2019 complaints were not invented, and patches did not fix all of them. The open world is beautiful and largely empty, so exploring a building usually gets you crafting scrap rather than a story. Stealth is bushes and takedowns with nothing to experiment with. Gunfights are competent and no more. Deacon is written as permanently furious, the flashbacks are sentimental, and the script treats humourlessness as maturity.
The counterargument is the bike. Fuel runs out, damage is real, and scrap has to be found, which turns every journey into a small logistics problem instead of a loading screen. People who love this game love it because of the riding and the hordes, and they will tell you the 30 hours of mission filler is the price of admission. People who bounced off it bounced in the first five hours, before either of those things has room to work.
| You are | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| On PC and never played it | Buy | 92% positive across 80,000+ reviews, Steam Deck Verified, and it discounts hard. The strongest version of the argument for this game |
| Own it on PS4 disc | Upgrade for $10 | As long as your PS5 has a disc drive. Horde Assault alone is worth it |
| Got it through PS Plus | Wait for a sale | No upgrade path for you. The remaster has fallen to $19.99 before and will again |
| Own it on PC already | Buy Broken Road | $10 for Horde Assault, Permadeath and Speedrun, no re-buy |
| Short on patience | Skip | It is a 30 hour-plus game that takes several hours to show you its best idea |
| Here only for the hordes | Go straight to Horde Assault | It is playable from the moment you boot the remaster. You do not have to finish the story first |
PC requirements
| Part | Minimum |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX 6300 |
| RAM | 8GB |
| GPU | GeForce GTX 780 or Radeon R9 290 |
| DirectX | Version 11 |
| Storage | Those minimums are from 2021 and are now very easy to clear. The more useful fact is that Days Gone is Steam Deck Verified, which is not something most 70GB open world games from this era manage. For other PC install walkthroughs, our Battlefield 6 PC guide covers official access and a clean setup. |
Verdict
A flawed, overlong, genuinely special game that got judged on its worst five hours. The missions repeat, the world is thin, and Deacon is hard company. The bike, the weather and the hordes are unlike anything else, and nobody has made this exact game since. Two re-releases and seven years of players have moved the consensus about as far as a consensus can move. Get it on PC where it is cheapest and best supported, give it until the first horde forces you to run, and then decide. Assessed on the current build including the 2025 remaster content.
Frequently asked questions
Is Days Gone 2 happening?
There is no sequel in production. Bend Studio pitched one and Sony declined in 2021, citing the mixed reception and the long development. Bend then had a live-service project cancelled and lost around 30% of its staff in June 2025. Nothing has been announced since.
Which version should I buy?
PC if you have one. It is the cheapest, it is Steam Deck Verified, and the Broken Road DLC gives you everything the PS5 remaster has for $10. On PlayStation, the remaster is the only version worth starting fresh on.
Can I upgrade from PS Plus to the remaster for $10?
No. The $10 upgrade does not apply to copies redeemed through PlayStation Plus. You have to buy Days Gone Remastered outright.
How long is it?
Somewhere around 30 to 40 hours for the story depending on how much side content you take on, plus roughly 10 more if you work through Horde Assault.
Why do critics and players disagree so much?
Critics reviewed a buggy launch build to a deadline and found a long game with repetitive missions. Players came later, on patched versions and usually at a discount, with time to reach the hordes and the bike systems that take hours to open up.
Did it really sell nine million copies?
Probably not. That figure came from the former director quoting a trophy-tracking site that counted players, not sales, and he later said so himself. Around 7.3 million by early 2022 plus a million-plus on Steam is the more defensible estimate.
What is Horde Assault?
A scored survival arcade mode added in 2025, with up to 800 Freakers on screen, new playable characters and cosmetics. It is available from the moment you boot the game, so you do not need to finish the campaign.
Where to go next
- Dying Light: The Beast, the closest thing to this on the market right now
- Terminator: Resistance, another game players rated far above its reviews
- The Division 2, on how much a game can change after its review scores are locked in
- Saturnalia and The DioField Chronicle, two more games whose headline criticism was patched out later
- Everything you need to know about GTA 6, for open world scale done at the other end of the budget
- Browse more Open World, Survival and Action guides
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