Days Gone to Boast Hours of Cinematics

I might be the only person on this site still excited for Days Gone. Criticism of the game takes three common forms: It’s too similar to The Last of Us, the timing is a bit late for a tribute to Sons of Anarchy, the zombie thing is played out. I agree that zombies aren’t quite as fresh as they were when they hit the scene, but isn’t that how the zombie apocalypse ends? With a stench and a whimper?

My time as the last enthusiastic champion for Days Gone might be drawing to an end, though, with the news that it will feature “hours” of cinematics. DualShockers reports that Star Citizen Content Manager Jared Huckaby mentioned a chat with actor Sam Witwer, who plays main character Deacon St. John. Witwer mentioned that Days Gone has a “whole bunch of hours” of cinematic material. This quote is secondhand information, which means we are missing the context. It is worth noting, though, that the President of Sony Interactive’s Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has also stated that the game is “big.”

Hopefully, these hours of material are interactive and spaced well throughout the game. While cinematic pieces can be beautiful, no one really wants a game that feels more like a movie experience. Until Dawn might have managed to strike a nice balance with their QTE-heavy playable film, but that is a success that seems hard to emulate. With players already wondering if your material is outdated, the task of keeping them interested is even harder. Let’s all hope that the context missing from the quotes lies in the open-world, highly personalized nature of Days Gone, and isn’t merely long cutscenes forced on players regardless of the choices they’ve made in the game.

Days Gone is slated for release in 2018, exclusively on PlayStation.