Days Gone tech analysis: Bend Studios' Unreal world under the microscope
After more than seven years in development, Days Gone has finally arrived, delivering Bend Studio’s take on the zombie apocalypse. It’s a large-scale open world experience with a heavy focus on narrative and characters. To boil things down to their essentials, it’s basically The Last of Us meets Far Cry and it works.
It starts with the environment. Days Gone features an impressive take on the Pacific Northwest, with richly detailed conifer forests and open plains serving as the backdrop. The scenery has a decidedly unique feel as a result of this setting, and it’s backed by a highly impressive dynamic weather and time of day system, amongst many other features. Bend also takes the road less traveled when it comes to its technology backend, with an approach that differs from most of Sony’s acclaimed first-party studios.
Perhaps that’s not so surprising though.The release of Days Gone marks a return to home console development for Bend Studio and as its first original IP since the late 90s, Days Gone represents a major shift for the company. For nearly a decade, Bend has focused on creating high-end portable experiences for Sony’s handheld consoles. This includes an impressive third-person sequel to the Resistance series crafted specifically for PlayStation Portable as well as a mobile installment in the Uncharted franchise, launched alongside the ill-fated PlayStation Vita.
Beyond the change in platform, however, Days Gone differs on the engine side. While most first-party studios within Sony have focused on home grown, in-house technology, Bend has opted to build Days Gone utilising Epic’s very powerful Unreal Engine 4 – possibly a first for a major Sony first-party studio. It also presents an interesting challenge for the team and technology alike. This is a massive open world environment rivaling the density of a Far Cry game with traversal both on-foot and on-bike. While Unreal has proven very capable of delivering large scale games, there aren’t many examples quite like Days Gone – and the results are fascinating.
