The studio behind this PlayStation 4 exclusive is the author of Syphon Filter and titles like Uncharted: The Golden Abyss or Killzone: Retribution.
Two decades, three generations of consoles and many changes in the video game industry have passed from the first Syphon Filter to Days Gone. Not that SIE Bend Studio has stood idly by for twenty years. The Oregon developer has long focused on portable titles, both PSP and PS Vita. So things, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow and Killzone: Retribution came out for the first Sony laptop, while Uncharted: The Golden Abyss and Uncharted: Fight for Treasure were the games they created for PS Vita . With Days Gone, the studio has returned to desktop titles, and has done so with an open-world video game set in a United States on the edge of the precipice.
One year after its launch, Bend Studio has released some data on social media. The North American study has recorded that in 365 days, players have spent 200 million hours in the game, of which 45 million have been dedicated to dealing with the hordes, 32 million to infestations, 30 million to ambush camps and another 30 million to Nero checkpoints. All additional details can be found in the infographic that we publish below these lines.
It is not a secret that Bend Studio hoped to turn their new video game into a saga, of course it has not been officially confirmed that they are working on a sequel. However, the clues that have been left show that the team is immersed in the development of a new high-budget production. In fact, a recent job offer gives a good account of this. They are looking for a technical artist for a title that will feature "high quality" characters. The idea is that the human characters are represented in the game with great realism. Only time will tell whether or not it is a second part of Days Gone. In the meantime, let's get on the bike and travel to collect the details and thoughts that John Garvin, writer and creative director, has expressed through the media.
A year ago, players took their first ride on the Broken Road.
Thanks for sharing all the great memories you’ve had in #DaysGone and amazing photo mode screenshots! We love all of you! 💕🏍️ pic.twitter.com/tFohFefdcy
– Bend Studio #DaysGone (@BendStudio) April 26, 2020
A new reality, the Days Gone premise
Humanity faces an unequaled challenge. An unprecedented pandemic ravages the world and completely changes society, which is in a state of constant danger. Those infected by the monster virus become humanoid beings, who although they treasure a certain intelligence, use it to search for their own food, that is, any being that comes close to their domain. Under constant alertness, Deacon St John drags his own personal dramas. This tattooed biker, with a bearded face and half-mane, wears suits, wears jeans, and wears a cap on his head, not to mention the different weapons he carries.
The start of the game hardly refers to how the world got to that situation, which does not mean that it does not delve into it later. Creative director John Garvin, in an interview with Venture Beat, points out that the idea of the beginning is to establish Deacon's most important relationships, "his wife Sarah and his best friend Boozer". The events that have occurred and the important decisions that must be made will profoundly affect the character's psychology, so that his way of acting will be reflected in those episodes from the past.
Some productions like The Walking Dead don't delve into the how, but the developers at Bend Studios wanted to dig into what had happened previously, on the whys. "It depends on the story," explains Garvin. Some narratives focus on how the world ended or what the virus is; others do not. I'm interested in it, that's why we introduced it. I like to hear about why things are the way they are and explore some of that. " For the director, the goal was to fill in the gaps little by little, so that the player was discovering the world as he uncovered new points in the world.
Monsters and humans: when the world is doomed to disaster
Regarding the chosen setting, Bend Studio took into account the place where his studio is located so that he finally decided to move the narration to the same location, Oregon. During the presentation of the video game in Madrid, Garvin admitted that they had chosen that area of the United States not only for its beauty, but also for its contrasts: desert areas, lush forests, wonderful, but also terrible places, very much at the mercy of phenomena meteorological. In this way, Days Gone benefits from disparate scenarios, which change depending on the time of year.
A society is governed by rules that the human group is given to establish an order on a daily basis. Passions, the invisible barriers that prevent you from behaving in a certain way, are exposed when the social order breaks down. "It is a brutal environment" that is framed in a post-apocalyptic universe. "This is my vision of what would happen if you remove law and order and allow people who are inclined to do evil things" to act as they truly are. In that regard, Bend Studio's production not only focuses on the spawns, but also portrays humans taking advantage of the situation to take advantage.
Homo sapiens is said to be the only intelligent being. However, people do not always behave rationally. Sometimes, collectively, a group of individuals acts irrationally. Speaking to GTM magazine, John Garvin himself reflects on a sect that defends rippers – one of the species of monsters – in the video game. Why do sects exist in the real world and why do they act the way they do? Why do they get together in a room and kill each other? We don't know, ”says the creative director. Rest in Peace, the game's sect, channels it all through its leader. This is how it happens in reality too. "I look at them in the real world and I'm passionate about them because I don't know why sect leaders are so successful in recruiting people and making them believe in what they believe in." This is more or less what the ripper sect represents, Garvin says. “Make the world dangerous and horrid, bring together people who should be rational, but who think of being like them. It doesn't make much sense, but sects don't make it either. ”
Days Gone starts from reality to weave the story and the characters that live in this fictional world. “In the real world, animals don't get along with each other, they hunt and kill each other, they are territorial. That is exactly what the monsters do. " They move in herds, which makes them very dangerous, but they also dominate territories and migrate, looking for food areas and "ponder whether they can be successful or not." It is curious that Bend Studio has always emphasized the need to distinguish between traditional zombies and the beings that live in this alternative version of Oregon. For North Americans, they are different monsters.
The bike, one more character
One of the differences from other video games is that the mode of travel around the world is inherently linked to the personality of Deacon St. John. In the same interview with GTM, Garvin expands the character's number of personal ties to three: his wife, his best friend, and his motorcycle. “The bike is part of the character and one of the reasons we explored the idea of having an uncle who was a member of a motorcycle club before the world ended, because that gave us a way of thinking about the way that he was going to move around the world. " According to the developer, Days Gone was built with the bike in mind, both roads and bridges. The same with the weather system, “which makes circulation more difficult if it is raining, since the terrain becomes slippery. All of this works together to create a unique experience. ”
At the time, just as the game was about to hit the market, it was still unclear whether the title would be a success or whether it would pass without penalty or glory. In January 2020, Days Gone was confirmed to have been the best-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive on the PlayStore Store. At the same time, it managed to sneak into the top ten best sellers of the platform in digital format. Garvin said the following days before the video game hit the stores. “I think the best games have a powerful story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Days Gone is a standalone title with a strong storyline. Will it become a franchise? We will decide when it is released. Next, we'll think about what happens next. ”
And from before, how has Bend Studio grown over the years?
Days Gone is a high-budget product, but the number of people who have worked on this production is far from the amount handled by other great games like God of War or The Last of Us Part 2, if we focus on Sony specifically. Beyond the Japanese company, other companies in the sector such as Electronic Arts or Ubisoft use several studios for the same video games, with teams that sometimes exceed 300 people. For example, behind Assassin's Creed Valhalla is Ubisoft Montreal, but it has the support of 14 other studios, Ubisoft Barcelona among them.
Garvin is one of the developers working at Bend Studio from the beginning, ever since the studio was still known as Eidetic. In an encounter with Screen Rant, the creative director traces the evolution to the present day. "We still have Chris Reese, who is the studio director. He was the lead designer for Syphon Filter at the time of Eidetic. I've always been around, like Jeff Ros, Days Gone Game Director and Syphon 1 level designer. ” People like Connie Booth (Vice President of Product) already walked the halls of Bend Studios decades ago. "We are growing, but many of us have worked together for more than twenty years." He mentions that he found a photo from the beginning of the study and found that there are still a dozen people from those times.
“The study was kept small for a long time. By the time we finished Syphon Filter 3, we were surely 30 people, maybe less than that. I don't think we started to grow until we started The Golden Abyss ”, with 50 employees. "For a game like Days Gone, 140 people is pretty little." They do, however, have all the support they receive from the rest of the Sony teams, especially in aspects such as sound or film scenes. “We went to Los Angeles and filmed on the Sony sets with their teams; Sony Visual Arts and Services helped us a lot (probably about 50 people total). And that's not counting PRs and marketing people. "
Days gone by won't come back, but the future for Bend Studio looks hopeful, whether it's with Deacon St. John on his bike or with new characters. What is clear is that the new study is already focused on PlayStation 5, the new generation console from Sony. We will wait with caution and with the weapon well at hand, lest a horde of monsters catch us off guard.
