It’s pretty clear I’m just not in the headspace for another post-apocalyptic zombie trek. More than that, Days Gone completely failed to hook me in its opening hours. The narrative setup felt utterly generic, and I couldn’t muster any real investment in Deacon or the surrounding cast.

People often insist that Days Gone ‘gets genuinely great in the second half,’ but if an open-world title demands twenty hours of lukewarm busywork before finding its stride, that’s essentially a dealbreaker.

Even setting the narrative aside, the moment-to-moment friction wears thin. The core shooting and motorcycle mechanics are serviceable, but the survival wheel and crafting menus are clunky and cumbersome during fast encounters.