There’s the slight zoom when Deacon clicks into cover the subtle visual language that’s built up without any UI (there’s crafting scrap under most car bonnets, melee weapons in the backs of trucks, and police cars almost always have ammo in the boot) and the way you swipe the DualShock trackpad to navigate menus – a touch that’s lofted above the charge of gimmickry through its sheer usefulness. But the good news is that the action doesn’t need much spice the weapons are punchy (with special notice given to the baseball bat, which can be fitted with an optional buzz saw blade), and the whole thing is furnished with ingenious flourishes. Things are occasionally spiced up with a bike chase, or a tracking minigame that sees Deacon in the dirt, sniffing around like a gundog. Folks have need of Deacon’s talents, which consist of (a) finding someone/something, (b) killing someone/something, and (c) sneaking around someone/something. These range from ramshackle hamlets snarled up in barbed wire to military-style barracks fortified with log fences (think Croydon and you’re halfway there), and they bustle with job opportunities. The action is set, rather fittingly, in a place called Farewell – a fictitious wilderness scattered with settlements. Days Gone chews off chunks of inspiration from a horde of worthy sources: Far Cry’s outpost-capturing sandbox, the teeming throngs of Left 4 Dead, and the combat and dramatic salt of The Last of Us. Well, fortunately for us, the answer is: plenty. ‘Because what the hell else are we gonna do?’ ‘Do you know why we keep going?’ he asks, trying to encourage an ailing ally.

At first, he seems the dour and determined sort. John – a choppy scramble of sounds and syllables, none of which approach what you’d call a name.

The hero is a biker called, believe it or not, Deacon St. Its open world is spread out in splashy tracts of woodland, and the zombies ravening through it are hairless, pale, and pink, like worms sprouting from the soil. Days Gone, the new game from Bend Studio, is a muddy one. It’s the end of the world in Oregon, and by the looks of things it came not with a bang, nor a whimper, but under a great set of churning tyres.

Days gone ps4 review