When does a game is worth remastering? It’s a question that has no clear answer, mostly because publishers are just throwing remasters at the wall and see what sticks.
If it’s a old, obscure cult classic, a remaster would be much appreciated by the small community of diehards willing to re-experience their favourite game again. If it’s for a relatively recent title that isn’t even two console generations apart, not so much.
So why is PlayStation adamantly doing all these PS4 remasters on PS5? And charging what used to be a free next-gen upgrade? Because they can, and I assume they too want to see what sticks on the wall. Marvel’s Spider-Man, Death Stranding, Ghost Of Tsushima and Horizon: Zero Dawn have gotten the remaster treatment. Meanwhile, Until Dawn and The Last Of Us (a PS3 game that had a PS4 remaster) now has a PS5 remake.
So what’s the next PS4 game to get a native PS5 release? Is it Bloodborne? That game’s 10 years old already, it’s ancient and deserves a remaster.
But no, it’s Days Gone’s turn.
Okay, that is a bit mean. But this is coming from a guy that ride and died for Days Gone back in 2019. At the time, I find the open-world adventure with light survival elements, motorcycle-based travel and horde not-zombies remarkable at times, but nothing too special back. I was among the minority of Days Gone fans, as almost everyone was ripping the game apart for its laden of bugs, glitches and being derided as another “one of those” open world games.
I’m glad that PlayStation still love biker guy Deacon St. John and his merry adventures across not-zombie-laden Oregon to give Days Gone a remaster. But I am still not convinced you should be paying for a PS5 upgrade if you have played the PS4 game already. Because what’s been added here is not that much.
What’s New In Days Gone Remastered?
So here’s what Days Gone added to the Remastered release, which is just a free update on PC thankfully. You have 60 FPS performance and enhanced graphics, a new mode, and some accessibility options. That’s it.
Now the performance improvements are a godsent. I put the game back to quality mode so it runs at 30 FPS just for funsies and I remembered how awful the game performed in my eyes. The game looks gnarly in ways games that do run at 30 FPS don’t look like. It becomes tolerable once you get used to it, which is how I did able to complete the game way back then without much complaining after that initial shock. So having a 60 FPS performance mode is a big game changer. If your big qualm of the game is how it performs on a console, well, the PS5 remaster might change your mind.
The new mode, Horde Assault, is just a fun mini-game seperate from the main campaign. Think of it as Days Gone’s Mercenaries mode. There are multiple maps to play in and multiple character skins to use and unlock. It’s a fun way of reusing the game’s marvellous (but not as fun to face against) hordes.
It’s a fun time waster, and it unfortunately highlights how the horde isn’t mechanically fun to interact despite it being a technological marvel when it was introduced. These days, we have games that have elements of surviving a horde onslaught that’s just more fun. Space Marines 2. Darktide. Hell, even PlayStation’s own Helldivers 2 does the job better.
The new accessibility options are wonderful nice-to-haves, but I do find it odd that this isn’t backported to the PS4 version. Yes, these features cost money to develop, and obviously PlayStation wants to incentivise players to upgrade. But something about charging for accessibility options doesn’t sit right with me.
The remaster also added DualSense support, making use of haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Though I find the implementation of the adaptive triggers awful. By default, when riding a bike, the trigger is stiff to allow you to only slightly rev the bike, and you need to press it hard until it clicks to go full throttle. And in the world of Days Gone where the Broken Road is literally broken, you don’t really go full throttle a lot, you’re feathering it as you navigate on and off the asphalt. Which means your finger will get tired quick with this implementation of the trigger. It’s awful! The brakes meanwhile work fine, it just adds more pressure when you squeeze the trigger down, like a brake pedal in a car would. Just do that for the gas pedal, please. Otherwise, I recommend turning the accelerator’s adaptive trigger off.
Is Days Gone Any Good In 2025? Sort Of
But the reason I am reviewing Days Gone Remastered is to have an excuse to revisit this game.
I played Days Gone pre-release, it’s one of the first opportunities I had to produce a game review ahead of release like many big boy outlets usually do. And I remember how nerve-wracking having published my thoughts of the game was and comparing them with my peers, only to see how the general public saw the game in a different light.
Gamer Matters have come so far since then, and those jitters I had publishing a review on embargo is long gone six years later. But the reason I was so nervous for that Days Gone review was how I… enjoyed so much of it, despite its faults.
So, I spent some more time on the Broken Road.
The gameplay loop is not the best in its class. Weapon selection isn’t inspiring. The crafting element is messy. There is a bit of a survival game feel in there where you have to scrounge buildings for parts and hoping you don’t encounter anything nasty (which you usually do). Combat is serviceable with the option to stealth kill your way to clear an outpost.
There are some quirks in Days Gone design that stands the test of time. The game doesn’t dole you out with outposts to clear. Some of them you only find clues on the side of the road, and only after following a trail you’d find an area filled with enemies and a person to be rescued, or something of its ilk. Never realised this game had the same idea that Ghost Of Tsushima did, to make the open world worth exploring and not a glorified theme park.
The other is the storyline system. The game has you pick up missions and these form a questline. But it’s presented upfront that if you follow this mission, you’re progressing a specific storyline that is covering a specific theme. It could be helping brother-from-another-mother Boozer, which you can expect the two bros further developer their established friendship through the not-zombie apocalypse. Or it could be a mission that advances the conspiratorial plot of what the government was up to. It doesn’t affect how I play the game, but it affects how I appreciate that these disparate mission and activities are all part of a thread. I haven’t seen any game approach this style of what’s more or less a quest log. But I still appreciate the inventiveness of presenting this information.
And as much as people make fun of ol’ Deek, he has his charms. His monologues are delivered under his breath as if he’s reluctantly have to remind himself out loud what to do. His behaviour drastically change depending on who’s company he’s with. He can feign politeness, or just don’t give a damn to a person he doesn’t vibe with. He’s not literally me, but he feels like a guy that I can understand. There’s a person worth knowing under his all tatted up exterior. Biker man here has depth, and that’s something I still stand on. He’s a decent protagonist.
If you never played Days Gone and now have a PS5 (or PC), this is the game presented in its best light. Now that the buggy mess that it was on launch are long gone, it’s worth checking out if you really want to play an open world game with zombies. The game has heart. The story isn’t prestige TV quality, but good enough to be more than just a second screen viewing. Once you hit the point of the story where this song plays, it gets going. And plenty of great licensed music, they used that one song from Sons Of Anarchy, the TV show Days Gone was heavily compared to back then, to great effect.
That said, if you’ve played Days Gone before and wasn’t sold on it, I’m afraid the remaster does little to change your mind. It’s a more buttoned-up version of that same game you don’t vibe with. And no amount of graphical improvement or performance boost will change that.
It’s safe to say Bend Studio’s ride with Days Gone is over. At least, the vision of what that team was trying to realise is now delivered in the best form it can be.
So, when’s Bloodborne’s turn on the remaster treatment?
This quick review features no updates to the game score. The original review score stands.
Played on base PS5. Review copy provided by the publisher. Original review posted in 2019.