Days Gone nuts

 Not again...

Art is tough. Painful, even. Some have compared the act of creating a piece of art to show to the rest of the world like cutting off a piece of your flesh and serving it up, whilst others consider it like killing your own child. If you're wondering why these comparisons and allusions are always so maudlin and fatalist, remember these are the musings of artists. As such, one can only imagine the pain of publishing a piece of work that doesn't receive the reverence of it's peers, in fact; a game that can seen as something of a black sheep among certain circles. It must sting. But such is the brunt of what artists bear, it's the risk with bearing yourself like that, and what you need to learn from such circumstances is how to learn and grow from criticism. What doesn't help, literally anyone, is going on a massive spree of blaming literally everyone else in the world but the product itself. It's the fans- no, it's the critics, no- it's the little green men who live in my head and call me rude names in their unspeakable language!

Believe it or not the director of Days Gone, Sony's lukewarm zombie survival game, has actually managed to make himself look a little silly with his ravings once before; although that time it was aimed at fans. If you remember, the director screamed about how fans who don't buy games on the first week, totally blind, at full price, without waiting for reviews or second opinions, are the poison to modern games. He argued that those who don't contribute to week one sales just are letting down the games companies and those who seek out sales before making their purchasing decisions are the reasons why games they like don't get sequels. Now to be fair to the man, he was working in the higher echelons of AAA where competition is extremely tough and every little last ounce of success you can squeeze out benefits your chances of remaining near the top. And at such a point, sure; I'd imagine your fans do start becoming nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

That being said, blaming 'lazy fans' for Days Gone not being a smash hit, thus scuppering the chances of Sony ordering a sequel, is a bit reductive; isn't it? When I introduced 'Days Gone' as 'Lukewarm', that wasn't just a perception I pulled out of my head, that was the general consensus by critics and audiences. Which isn't to say there aren't people that really loved its style, of course there were; but no one seems to have been really blown away, by what Days Gone had to offer. Now that shouldn't have really been a problem but again; Sony are particularly demanding pay masters. They demand excellence and success at every turn and if you can't deliver that for them, they'll start trimming fat. And Days Gone was somewhat formulaic, it was rough around the edges, the loop started to drag around about the mid-point of the game, the narrative was fine and not particularly satisfying; it was a good zombie game, but it wasn't a Sony platinum.

And when you really address these common complaints and seek out the root cause of them, well at some point you're going to have to come back to the process of making the game. Now no one outside of the development studio can tell you what happened in there, if conceptual ideas weren't particularly strong or if technology just couldn't keep up with their grand ideas; all we have is the final, 7/10, product. A responsible and self-confident game director would likely own the difficulties and problems of such a scenario and not let that define them or their team. A great game director would take on all of those issues as areas from which to improve to ensure that the next project, however big or small it may be, is the slam dunk you wished that last one to be. What neither of those theoretical would do, however, is whine about how it's still everyone else's fault.

The reason why a director wouldn't do that, is because it fosters a kind of uncomfortable environment where those sorts of sentiments trickle down and take route, ultimately creating an unpleasant work space to be a part of. (I've been inside such a crappy unit myself once.) Point in case with another big member of the Days Gone team who recently went on a little Twitter rant about the unfair treatment of Days Gone in the review circuit; a title which even I will admit was overshadowed perhaps a bit more than it should have been; but it was a zombie game at a time when that genre was squeezed all but dry, so that might have something to do with it. This key development member responded to how the PC port scored better than the console version, subtly hinting that the better scores were due to bad code of the original being cleaned up. Passing the buck again, this time onto his former colleagues. (Very professional...)

He also went the truly humorous route of blaming the lack of 'household name' status for the game on reviewers who couldn't be bothered to play the game, or that were too 'woke' to take a 'badass biker who stares at his girlfriend's ass'! So if you're finished choking to death on the lethal levels of cringe in that sentence, let's dissect. Our man seems utterly oblivious to the fact that people could have played his game and found the gameplay loop to be repetitive and tedious; I can say for myself I've seen people play the thing and make that observation live with no contributing stimuli, but I guess in his head that's a false criticism conjured up by a coordinated class of reviewer who couldn't push themselves through a zombie survival game. If these same outlets managed to endure Watch Dogs Legion, I'll bet they had a blast rocking through Days Gone.

As for the 'wokeness' allegations; come on. Honestly, the take away that I found most had to the whole romance subplot was that it felt emotionally stoic and unmoving. People didn't really care about the girlfriend character or where she was, and seeing as how that was supposed to be the emotional backbone of the main character, players failed to get fully invested in the stakes of the plot. At least in 'Dead Space' the fate of Nicole was shrouded in intrigue and semi-cosmic mystery. But sure, I guess it makes him happy to think that everyone was just so utterly upset by how much of a 'manly man' mr generic protagonist was that they got their woke liberal agendas twisted up in the prissy 'my-little-kitty' panties; because that is what everything in life whittles down to, doesn't it? The imaginary clashing war of moralities that exists entirely within the heads of emotionally stunted weirdoes. Ah, to be an abject moron; what oblivious bliss that must be!

To his small credit, this developer did turn around in a later statement and declare that he didn't mean to throw his fellow programmers under the bus. He was merely highlighting that the Days Gone project was far above their weight class and the team did an admirable, if messy, job in meeting their ambitions; to which I would agree. Technologically; Days Gone's systems work fine. If only the ideas forming those systems were more interesting. Then he did what all tough Twitter folk do, and privated his account for the backlash he got on that public forum he entered. (If you can't take the criticism; why post it on Twitter?) Such is the quite surprising backlash from a decent Sony exclusive that I honestly thought would have done a mint, but which has unravelled more in the years since than it's spotty launch had done. Maybe let the art speak for itself next time, maybe that way your legacy would be a bit less muddy.