|OT| Days Gone PC - Of Bike and Boozer | "whole slate of ports" to come

prudis

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Days Gone is an open-world action-adventure game set in a harsh wilderness two years after a devastating global pandemic.

Step into the dirt flecked shoes of former outlaw biker Deacon St. John, a bounty hunter trying to find a reason to live in a land surrounded by death. Scavenge through abandoned settlements for equipment to craft valuable items and weapons, or take your chances with other survivors trying to eke out a living through fair trade… or more violent means.

KEY FEATURES
  • A striking setting: From forests and meadows, to snowy plains and desert lava fields, the Pacific Northwest is both beautiful and lethal. Explore a variety of mountains, caves, mines and small rural towns, scarred by millions of years of volcanic activity.
  • Brutal encounters: With vicious gangs and hordes of Freakers roaming the land, you’ll need to make full use of a variety of customizable traps, weapons, and upgradable skills to stay alive. Don’t forget your Drifter bike, an invaluable tool in a vast land.
  • An ever-changing environment: Jump on the saddle of Deacon’s trusty motorbike and explore a dynamic world dramatically affected by the weather, a dramatic day/night cycle and the evolving Freakers, who adjust to their surroundings – and the people in it.
  • A compelling story: Lose yourself in a powerful tale of desperation, betrayal and regret, as Deacon St. John searches for hope after suffering a deep, personal loss. What makes us human when faced with the daily struggle for survival?

INCLUDES
  • New Game Plus
  • Survival Mode
  • Challenge Mode
  • Bike Skins

PC features include ultra-wide monitor support, unlocked framerates and improved graphics (increased level of details, field of view, foliage draw distances).





What about PlayStation games on PC?
JR: A whole slate of them is on the way starting with Days Gone this spring.

So releasing PlayStation games on PC was something that Sony PlayStation held back on for a long time. Now it sounds like you’re very much on that bandwagon. What changed?

JR: “We find ourselves now in early 2021 with our development studios and the games that they make in better shape than they’ve ever been before,” Ryan said. “Particularly from the latter half of the PS4 cycle our studios made some wonderful, great games. There’s an opportunity to expose those great games to a wider audience and recognize the economics of game development, which are not always straightforward. The cost of making games goes up with each cycle, as the caliber of the IP has improved. Also, our ease of making it available to non-console owners has grown. So it’s a fairly straightforward decision for us to make.”

Horizon Zero Dawn on PC in August last year. How did that go?

JR: We assessed the exercise in two ways. Firstly, in terms of the straightforward success of the activity of publishing the game on PC, people liked it and they bought it. We also looked at it through the lens of what the PlayStation community thought about it. There was no massive adverse reaction to it. So we will continue to take mission steps in this direction

PlayStation’s Jim Ryan: ‘We’re making a completely new VR format for PS5’
 
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Paul

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That is awesome news. I tried playing DG on PS4 Pro, but the 30fps makes it completely disgusting to play for me. So now I will be able to finally enjoy it.

Hopefully Tsushima can be next. And dare I hope for TLOU2.
 
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Shahem

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I'm not a huge fan of what I've seen of Days Gone to be honest. It has that generic, derivative flair to it.
For sure it's a commercially intelligent title to port to PC, and I'll buy it if such is the road towards God of War and The Last of Us on Steam.

I found Horizon Zero Dawn really good by the way, formulaic and certainly not very bold in its design but very well executed and looked great.

Days Gone being on UE4 means a PC port should run quite well even with not that much ressources alloced to the project.
 
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prudis

prudis

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oh forgot the quote about HZD
Horizon Zero Dawn on PC in August last year. How did that go?

We assessed the exercise in two ways. Firstly, in terms of the straightforward success of the activity of publishing the game on PC, people liked it and they bought it. We also looked at it through the lens of what the PlayStation community thought about it. There was no massive adverse reaction to it. So we will continue to take mission steps in this direction.
 

d00d3n

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I liked Days Gone. I wrote this about it on resetera (contrasting it to Mad Max, which someone claimed was similar):
It is interesting that you mention Mad Max. That game had pacing issues at the opposite end of the spectrum compared with Days Gone. For the first ten hours, the exploration aspect keeps on giving, the quests seem well put together and varied, the melee combat is satisfying and works well, the driving feels intuitive and the graphics seem pretty impressive. Then, after the ten hour mark, it starts to sink in that the game lacks any meaningful escalation of its gameplay systems, and both the exploration aspect and the graphics start to feel mind-numbingly repetitive. Most people stop playing the game at this point.

The first ten hours of Days Gone are pretty bad. The game has an abundance of survival systems that are quite complex for a mainstream open world game, but are explained poorly to the player. The weapons you start out with are for the most part ineffective, especially if you fuck something up and are swarmed by enemies, which happens all the time in the beginning of the game. The main story does not provide any clear motivation for continuing playing the game. Your buddy is sick or something, but why would the player care for him at this point in the game? You are sent off to do missions in the middle of nowhere where it is likely that you will both run out of gas for your motorcycle and run low on your other resources as well. The missions you are doing at this point seem throwaway and vaguely related to main story progress at best, with the infamous bear boss fight being a clear low point.

Then, after the ten hour mark or so in Days Gone, the game turns out to have a pretty decent main story after all. You do care for some of the characters when you get to know them, especially some of the new characters that are introduced. The ineffective weapons are replaced by a useful selection of guns, melee weapons, grenades and traps that feel good to use and present many interesting strategic possibilities both in relation to human enemies and zombies. The mission design turns out to be really varied for a mainstream open world game, with new enemy types and other gameplay aspects being introduced at a steady rate throughout the game. Even the graphics seem surprisingly varied between the different areas. The big problem is, most people have stopped playing before this point.
 

Mimosa

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It's crazy to see brand loyalists speak out against this move as if Sony was going to lose out on sales or as if they've committed some kind of grave sin. Consoles aren't even money makers for the Microsoft and Sony. I'm sure they (Sony) will figure out some sort of way to translate their subscription service over to the PC environment sooner or later.
 
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Prodigy

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First of all I am glad it is coming of course, will buy in a sale as I already played on PS4. The main thing I remember was that it felt like a high budget generic game (not great performance although I finished it on a base PS4), it had a slow start, but got better as it progressed but then never wanted to end. Shooting felt good, the zombie gameplay was great with good atmosphere, but there was a lot of openworld checklist items. Overall it is worth checking out.

As for fanboys being upset, that is par for the course and Sony knows that there will of be people like that, but it's overall not enough to sway them. As more games cross over you will see less and less push-back, as it becomes normalized.

Can't wait for God of War as that is my best game from Sony. I know it is sacrilege but I want that before Bloodborne (which might happen as Queen says there are still issues in the last round bloodborne tests).
 
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Parsnip

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Good official news.

Will probably get Days Gone €20 or something.

To be completely honest I'm not really that exited about other Sony games either but I'm happy for everyone who is.
 
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gabbo

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This is my only hope for Drakan: The Ancient Gates coming to pc officially


Also, my pc meets the recommended specs, plus/minus the GPU for Days Gone, so that might be fun. We'll see how word of mouth and reviews look when it drops.
 
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Valdien

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The requirements seem modest.

Hmm, since the game runs on UE4, I wonder if they'll update the engine and add DLSS.
 

Prodigy

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This is my only hope for Drakan: The Ancient Gates coming to pc officially


Also, my pc meets the recommended specs, plus/minus the GPU for Days Gone, so that might be fun. We'll see how word of mouth and reviews look when it drops.
Lmao, it feels weird to say this, but we will see god of war, demon souls, uncharted etc... before that ever happens. Best chance is to track down PS2 copy and emulate it.
 

Shahem

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storepage is up (will udpate the OP later)


PC features include ultra-wide monitor support, unlocked framerates and improved graphics (increased level of details, field of view, foliage draw distances).

DX11 in 2021 is super lame for a AAA game. This being an open world game means hello CPU limitations at >60fps.....

I know a solid DX11 renderer is preferable to a loose DX12 one but I was expecting whoever is behind this port to understand the modern PC gaming landscape.
 

texhnolyze

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i am still bit baffled by the choose to start the "whole slate" with Days gone .... but its been the one i have been a bit curious , if mostly just for the zombie tech
Horizon & Days Gone, what's common between them? Yup, open world. They're treading it lightly by pushing out the popular and safe genre first before the others. That said, I think that's enough testing by now. They could release one more open world game next or maybe straight to one of their more linear ones.
 

Shahem

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Oddly enough no Epic Games Store page as of now. :thinking-blob:

Almost as if it was irrelevant next to Steam. Almost as if priorizing the most popular storefront was the right thing to do.
 
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Vantr

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Oddly enough no Epic Games Store page as of now. :thinking-blob:

Almost as if it was irrelevant next to Steam. Almost as if priorizing the most popular storefront was the right thing to do.
I'd give it a few months. Things like adding a shopping cart and making a new store page for a game takes time.
 
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Shahem

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I'd give it a few months. Things like adding a shopping cart and making a new store page for a game takes time.
You are right we should not be in such a haste to see very common and widespread features implemented. I can't wait to see what 2024 looks like for the Epic© Games Store.
 

Durante

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I have no interest in this game (not my genre at all), but I always appreciate if a port explicitly includes higher LoD and draw distance options.
This is IMHO one of the most often neglected aspects when porting games from consoles which can -- to me at least -- make a huge difference to the final quality.

DX11 in 2021 is super lame for a AAA game. This being an open world game means hello CPU limitations at >60fps.....

I know a solid DX11 renderer is preferable to a loose DX12 one but I was expecting whoever is behind this port to understand the modern PC gaming landscape.
I don't really see that as such a huge negative for something like this. It ran on a base PS4, so it should be able to run well enough on a PC even with a DX11 renderer. A lot more can go wrong when implementing a renderer based on a low-level API.
What they can (easily) do in the port also depends on how far the game went in terms of customizing UE.
 
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Shahem

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I have no interest in this game (not my genre at all), but I always appreciate if a port explicitly includes higher LoD and draw distance options.
This is IMHO one of the most often neglected aspects when porting games from consoles which can -- to me at least -- make a huge difference to the final quality.

I don't really see that as such a huge negative for something like this. It ran on a base PS4, so it should be able to run well enough on a PC even with a DX11 renderer. A lot more can go wrong when implementing a renderer based on a low-level API.
What they can (easily) do in the port also depends on how far the game went in terms of customizing UE.
No arguments whatsoever against higher LODs. Replaying old open world games is sometimes painful in part due to that.*
On the subject of DX11, even PS4 games are very well threaded and unfortunately DX11 even coupled with an agile driver does not yield the best results when CPU bound. I'm sure that won't be much of an issue in the end as PC CPUs are leagues above the pitiful Jaguar cores, still DX12 potentially can also improve GPU performance.

Not a big deal ultimately.
 

Durante

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DX11 gives you Win7 support , which somepeople still use
Good point! Though to be fair you could also get that with Vulkan.

Also, this reminds me that we still have to set up a Win 7 PC for debugging a particular issue at some point... :/
 

gabbo

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Lol you think anyone at Sony still remembers that game exists?
Lmao, it feels weird to say this, but we will see god of war, demon souls, uncharted etc... before that ever happens. Best chance is to track down PS2 copy and emulate it.

My only hope.
I have it and emulate it already, but i'd love to see it revived/sold on pc natively. I know I'm probably the only person alive who cares, I just really like that series and wish it wasnt trapped on the ps2 (Drakan is for me what Dinocrisis is to Jawmuncher, to a degree)

Can't wait to see what else they have lined up either way
 
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Durante

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Honestly, though I obviously don't want that to happen, I feel like not putting an initial price of $60 on a Bloodborne PC port would be leaving money on the table.

If it's a good port with expected features/performance then literally millions of people will pay that, and you can still get the rest later in sales.
 

Mimosa

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With the amount of people frothing at the mouth for this, I think their decision on the pricing was made long ago. Hopefully it does turn out to be a $40 title. But I'd be surprised.
 

Joe Spangle

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Its tricky isn't it because i'd say £40 is too much for a port of a fairly old game. I can get 2-3 other good games for £40 on Steam.

People (including me) do want these Sony games on PC though and so im tempted to pick it up just to add to the numbers so that more titles show up on PC.
 

The Janitor

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DX11 in 2021 is super lame for a AAA game. This being an open world game means hello CPU limitations at >60fps.....

I know a solid DX11 renderer is preferable to a loose DX12 one but I was expecting whoever is behind this port to understand the modern PC gaming landscape.
On the plus side, DX11 means I can use 3Dmigoto to make a HUD toggle. Apparently the game lacks HUD options :face-with-tears-of-joy:
 

Prodigy

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40$, will get it in the future for sure (already played it), some good features for PC.
 
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Cacher

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Another game releasing in May. None of my business (thanks covid) but it must be exciting to many people.