Disclaimer: Days Gone 2 does not seem to be under active development yet. This article contains a slew of information you can read about to better understand the situation.
What is Days Gone?
Days Gone is a third-person open-world single-player game set in the zombie apocalypse. You play as the drifter Deacon St. John, a member of the now-former motorcycle gang The Mongrels. The game takes place in Oregon, US, 2 years after the initial outbreak. As Deacon drifts from one place to another while he tries to come to terms with his past it suddenly comes knocking…
The game features an overarching story with different storylines and sidequests. It has exploration, made enjoyable thanks to your bike, basic leveling and upgrade systems. It has hordes (literally) of freakers (similar to zombies) to take down, as well as not-so-friendly human enemies to take down either silently or violently.
The game was published by Sony and developed by Bend Studio as their first triple-A game. It was released on PS4 as an exclusive first-party title in 2019 and then released on PC in 2021.
Days Gone's Rocky Launch
The game’s launch was rocky and garnered mediocre reviews citing bugs, technical issues, quest design, and its slow burn story. The reviews were positive about the graphics, AI, and voice acting, specifically by Sam Witwer who voiced the main character Deacon.
Despite this, it had a successful launch outselling both God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn at launch in Japan, in North America it was the second best-selling game behind Mortal Kombat 11 and ended up as the 19th best-selling game overall in 2019. A private data leak confirmed they had sold 7.32 million units by February 2022.
Going by SteamDB it has a 91.42% positive rating with 84 945 total ratings as of this writing. That’s about 79,000 positive reviews and 6,000 negative reviews. Not only that, the game has had a respectable 24-hour peak of 4688 players on Steam, beating Hades 2, Dead Island 2, Doom Eternal, Prison Architect, and more, putting the game at the 183rd most played game on Steam today. Not bad for a 5 year old single-player game considering its history.
Despite this, Sony had higher expectations and deemed Days Gone a failure and shot down a sequel.
So what is happening?
Days Gone continued to get patched and received DLC as well as a graphical Next Gen update for PS5 featuring 4k textures and 60 frames per second gameplay. You can check out a comparison on YouTube here. The PC version has an uncapped framerate and even more graphical options than the PS5.
Everything considered, it went from a mediocre game to a solid game and those who beat the game are hungry for more. Especially after the cliffhanger the game left the player with.
Days Gone refuses to die and a big part of that is thanks to the controversy surrounding the sales number and the crumbs of information fed to the fans on Twitter/X every few months from the former co-directors of the game.
What We Know About Days Gone 2
23rd Feb 2021
Bend Studio announces a PC port.
9th April 2021
An article from Bloomberg about how Sony’s focus on teams that produced blockbuster hits caused discontent in Sony’s PlayStation division revealed that Bend Studio tried to pitch a sequel in 2019, the same year the game was released on PlayStation 4. Although profitable, Sony shot down the idea citing a lengthy development and mixed reviews. Instead, the teams were split up to help on Naughty Dog projects. Some staff left and the developers were worried they would get absorbed into Naughty Dog and asked to be taken off the project. They would now be working on their own unannounced project.
11th April 2021
In the same interview, Ross confirmed that co-op with a shared universe was part of the pitch for the sequel.
16th April 2021
Days Gone Creative Director and Writer John Garvin made a controversial statement in a lengthy interview, stating that if you love a game you should buy it at full price. He followed it up with that players shouldn’t complain if the game doesn’t get a sequel when it wasn’t supported at launch. The first part of the statement was retracted but it still made waves in the news.
18th May 2021
Sam Witwer, the voice actor of Deacon St. John did an AMA (ask me anything) over at Reddit. Among the things he discussed were journalists who don't take their time with slow burn games and said that “it’s not only too bad, but misleading to actual audience members who would like to read an actual review of what we actually did.”
13th September 2021
A tweet from the official Bend Studio’s talks about hiring for a new IP. PlayStation head Hermen Hulst emphasized in the comments that it would be a new IP. Nevertheless, the fans started speculating.
5th January 2022
Sales controversy and debate arised after the Sony-owned developer Sucker Punch Production tweeted their celebration of Ghost of Tsushima selling more than 8 million copies. Fans showed tons of support and news outlets reported it as a huge achievement.
6th January 2022
The co-director Jeff Ross of Days Gone commented on the comparative sales of Days Gone and local studio management made them feel like a disappointment.
He clarified in the comments that it was local management but wasn’t sure if there was any pressure coming from higher instances.
7th January 2022
- Ross announces that he has moved on and is not fighting for a sequel, saying that the time for a Days Gone 2 with him involved was 2 years ago (from the publishing of the interview).
- We find out that the former Sony head Shawn Layden had championed the game, but as soon as Layden left his role (Sept 2019), Days Gone 2 was dead.
- Ross says they were told constantly that the game was not selling well and that’s why they’re not getting a sequel.
- He clarifies he is referring to management within Bend Studio and not necessarily PlayStation or Sony management.
- Sony never told them what their sales numbers were.
- Ross’ source of over 8 million sold copies was revealed to be a site that tracks PlayStation trophies, which skews the numbers since shared discs and PlayStation Plus members can earn trophies just like the players who bought the game.
- After the stream, on the topic of Days Gone sales numbers, Ross confirmed that each set of data he had was verifying the other and that he stands by the number.
7th December 2022
John Garvin answers a fan on Twitter/X about why Days Gone didn’t get universal praise from critics. The tweet was seen as controversial by news and fans. The tweet has since been deleted.
8th December 2022
Garvin’s tweet prompted an answer from Bend Studio.
12th December 2023
Ransomware Rhysida announced it was holding a mass of Insomniac Games data hostage. They wanted 50 bitcoin (~$2 million) for the data via a dark web auction.
19th December 2023
After a 7-day deadline without a buyer, they released the data containing 1.67TB and more than 1.3 million files. In this data, people found a sales chart mentioning Days Gone. The PS4 version had sold 7+ million units in the reported timeframe, not including sales for the PC version. Days Gone was one of the best-selling new franchises on the list. While the leak garnered a ton of media attention it was not specifically because of Days Gone. The new information did however raise a few eyebrows.
26th April 2024
30th May 2024
He provides a poster without Deacon St. John as evidence it will never happen, though the poster is not official or made by Sony.
24th June 2024
John Garvin posted an answer on Twitter/X about a possible Days Gone 2 game.
- He says he’s not holding his breath but Sony could have a change of heart and bring him and Ross back to do a sequel.
- He reveals he had a full outline for the sequel and a world map that expanded the game.
- In another answer, he mentions he wrote a cliffhanger into the ending with the full intention of making a trilogy.
27th June 2024
Community Manager Kevin McAllister at Bend Studio takes to Twitter/X and apologizes to the Days Gone community for being continuously fed false hope and poor information by people looking for likes.
In another tweet, he says that these kinds of headlines from previous developers puts them in a bad position and says it’s time to move on.
