Despite an initial mixed reception upon its original launch, the critical response to Days Gone Remastered sees the game inching ever closer to its proportionally higher Steam user scores. Since Days Gone Remastered's release, a lot of the conversation surrounding the game has centered around how it feels both familiar and fresh years after its initial release, in large part thanks to how it blends the open-world gameplay that practically dominated the 8th console generation with some unique twists that have proven to be ahead of their time. The most notable of these is Days Gone's inclusion of a surprising amount of survival game elements, which Days Gone Remastered only serves to underscore as being one of the game's definitive elements.
One of the largest knocks against the original Days Gone at the time of its release was the sense that the game was too formulaic to separate itself from other open-world games it was competing with, but the survival and crafting mechanics that play such an important role in Days Gone's gameplay give it an edge that few other games of the era had. Further, Days Gone's implementation of survival game elements predates the sandbox survival "gold rush" of the last few years, which, when viewed through the retrospective lens of Days Gone Remastered, solidifies the game's survival elements as the secret weapon in its arsenal.
Days Gone: Crafting Recipe List
Here is how gamers can obtain and craft all 33 crafting recipes in Days Gone Remastered.
Days Gone Remastered Rewards Players Who Engage With Its Survival Mechanics
Criticisms of Days Gone's combat and recognizable open-world trappings are arguably fair given how closely it sticks to well-established conventions of open-world game design. But the silver lining that helps make the moment-to-moment gameplay more interesting is the game's implementation of survival mechanics via scavenging for supplies and using them to craft valuable healing items and weapons or repair Deacon's bike. The early hours of Days Gone can be quite unforgiving if players choose to play the game like a typical open-world action-adventure title, which necessitates engaging with the game's resource collecting and crafting to survive.
In doing so, Days Gone presents its survival game elements as both one of the game's highlights and the key to not just survival, but gaining the upper hand against the many threats wandering the game's post-apocalyptic vision of the Pacific Northwest. It doesn't hurt that the game makes it very clear that Deacon's bike is his lifeline out in the wilderness, and the moments of tension that the game can evoke during times when the bike is almost out of gas and a building or place to search for supplies is nowhere in sight help to elevate what's otherwise a very familiar open-world experience. Searching and scavenging everything in Days Gone Remastered remains of paramount importance, and the game actively rewards players for purposefully engaging with those systems.
Days Gone's Survival Mechanics Become Pivotal in Days Gone Remastered's New Permadeath Mode
In addition to its many visual enhancements and inclusion of all post-launch updates to the original game, Days Gone Remastered includes several new ways to play the game. When it comes to highlighting Days Gone's survival mechanics, the most significant of these is the new Permadeath mode, which is only further enhanced by playing the game on either the Survival difficulty or the much more challenging Survival II. Together, Permadeath and the Survival difficulty transform Days Gone Remastered into something that has more in common with a tough-as-nails sandbox survival game than an open-world action-adventure title.
It's a wise decision for Days Gone Remastered to provide a variety of ways for players, both old and new, to experience what's ostensibly the definitive edition of a cult-classic PlayStation exclusive. Those who have never played Days Gone before can go into Days Gone Remastered and tailor the experience to their liking, while returning players have a laundry list of new modes and modifiers to apply that can make a second or third playthrough more challenging. In both scenarios, Days Gone's survival mechanics remain the signature gameplay element that differentiates the title as an outlier of its time.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 81 /100 Critics Rec: 75%
- Released
- April 25, 2025
- ESRB
- M For Mature: Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Bend Studio
- Publisher(s)
- PlayStation Studios
