At E3 last week, SIE Bend Studio unveiled its brand new PS4 game Days Gone. A brutal, post-apocalyptic open-world adventure, Days Gone follows the story of Deacon St. John — a drifter and bounty hunter eking out his existence in the High Desert of the Pacific Northwest.

We caught up with the development team backstage in Los Angeles to find out a little bit more about its main protagonist and why his background is so important to the game.

If there’s one thing the team at Bend is keen to impart about the universe it’s crafting, it’s the uncompromising, dog-eat-dog nature of things. “Desperate people do what desperate people need to do to survive,” creative director Ron Allen explains.

“In most open world games, when there’s danger, it’s usually because you’ve brought it on yourself. Days Gone is a dangerous world — always.”

Watching a horde of infected “Freakers” pour over the environment in the extended demo shown on stage at the PlayStation E3 press conference, we’re left in little doubt as to what he’s getting at.

“Pretty much any of the survivors of the pandemic had to have a certain something about them — the appropriate skills to steal, kill and survive in a harsh world,” he continues.

“If you didn’t know from the kutt on his back, in his previous life, Deacon St. John was the MC of a motorcycle gang. He learned a lot from being part of that group, and that’s helped him survive.”

The team doesn’t flinch from its protagonist’s anti-hero persona. “He’s a dangerous guy. He’s using his skills where he can — his appetite for violence and mayhem help him excel at his job.”

“He can find things out in the field and create better tools. For example, you’ll see he’s actually threaded the barrel of his pistol with the same thread pattern as an oil filter, so if he finds oil filters out in the world he can screw them on and it’ll allow him a couple of suppressed shots.”

We ask him how much of a role Deacon’s vehicle of choice — a muddied, off-road, dirt bike — plays in the game.

“The motorcycle plays a huge, huge part,” he assures us.

“It’s extremely nimble — a car can’t fit into certain spaces, and can’t do certain things a motorcycle can do. It’s not the normal biker gang motorcycle. He’s adapted this thing to work in the wild. There’s no way you’re going to pull off jumps or cross the kind of terrain you saw here on a Harley-style bike.

Allen explains that not only can you store extra items on your bike, it’s also your primary means for traversing the game world and, of course, escaping from those aforementioned Freakers.

Despite the team’s insistence on an uncompromising world, Ron is anxious to share Bend’s deeper ambitions for Deacon and his story.

“It’s about the human condition — this guy’s a broken man,” the creative director explains.

“A lot of us are motorcycle riders. It’s a really vibrant culture. It’s often associated with criminals, mayhem, and violence, but it’s also about brotherhood and family. Because Deacon has suffered so much loss he holds on to that aspect of his past, and cherishes those relationships. It’s about him finding himself, because he no longer has his motorcycle gang.”

We’ll have more on Bend Studio’s exciting new project as development progresses.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/06/22/days-gone-on-ps4-the-origin-of-an-antihero/

PS3?

Thanks :)

I´m in for this.
Hopefully fuel isn´t too hard to find. I think the aspect I´ll like the most is riding the bike around.

They shouldve had the game cater more to co-op and have it more of a left for dead vibe. Its only then i see another zombie game worth it in sony's portfolio of upcoming games. The game is just to much like last of us. Dumb. Prolly still buy it though.

This game is nothing like TLOU.

This one was a surprise for me during E3. That demo sold me. Definitely a day 1 purchase.

Sounds sweet, looking forward to it. Bend did a great job with uncharted vita, so I have faith in them.

This. I absolutly loved the SF games on the PSP and Uncharted: GA for Vita. Trust the guys

In Days Gone you don't run from the zombie horde; you shatter through it.

It's not technically zombies you're fighting, to be fair. Similar to the stampeding, not-quite-undead armies of 28 Days Later, the game's "Freakers" are living creatures that have been infected. "Zombie" just offers an easy point of comparison.

SEE ALSO: 'Star Wars' and Resident Evil wow in Sony's E3 highlights

Taking on Freaker hordes isn't the singular focus of Days Gone, an open-world action/adventure from Sony's Bend Studio, but it's what was highlighted for the game's E3 2016 reveal (watch it above).

"What we showed in the ... press conference was a mission in the game," senior designer Eric Jensen told Mashable. "You're trying to find something, so you have to get rid of the horde to get out of there alive with the thing that you need."

It might not have seemed it during the stage demo, but there were a finite number of Freakers in that horde. All the explosions, all the gunplay, all the collapsing bits of scenery were meant to whittle down the numbers.

Image: Sony

"The cool thing about the horde is they can show up all over the world, but there are going to be hotspots," Jensen said.

The sawmill featured in the demo was one such hotspot, and the horde was drawn there for a specific reason. A derailed train left the ground littered with corpse-filled body bags, providing the Freaker horde with a much-needed source of food.

"The horde is drawn to those areas where they can eat, because they're living, breathing creatures," Jensen said. "They need to eat food, they need to drink water, they sleep."

"Everything out there is trying to kill you, but everything out there wants to survive just like you."

Those behavior patterns play out naturally without any interference from players. It's a key piece of the "systemic" open world in Days Gone, with Freakers and other beings just doing their own thing until you interrupt them.

In practical terms, the game's "living world" quality opens up different approaches for tackling its assorted challenges. In the case of the sawmill demo, everything from the time of day to the weather to the ruckus you create can affect how everything plays out.

"If you're making a ton of noise and [the Freakers] are making a ton of noise, there's potential for them to bring other guys out of the forest," Jensen said. "If you know you're at the time of day when they might be sleeping, then you may be less likely to bring other guys out."

Freaker sleep patterns open up the tactical possibilities as well. Even with a big, blockbuster "kill the horde" challenge, stealth is an option.

"[If] they're all sleeping you can go around, plant explosive devices and set traps, and then just kite them through this path that you created to take them out," Jensen said. "It just depends on what equipment you have; that really determines how you can play out the scenario."

Jensen stresses that Days Gone is about more than just fighting Freaker hordes. The story — which follows survivor and former motorcycle club rider Deacon St. John — remains a mystery, but the Freaker threat fits into a much larger world.

Image: Sony

"In the coming months we're going to be showing different examples of gameplay that will be a big contrast to what the horde is," Jensen said.

The Freakers might be the product of whatever apocalyptic event shattered the world of Days Gone, but the environment as a whole is dangerous to both Deacon and his motorcycle, your primary mode of transportation.

"You're riding around on a bike that you've outfitted to take on this terrain, but it's rugged terrain. It can hurt you, it can hurt your bike," Jensen said.

"There's other people out there that could potentially come after you [as well]," he added. "Everything out there is trying to kill you, but everything out there wants to survive just like you."