A former Bend developer has quashed any fans’ hopes of a Days Gone sequel.
Posting at the end of May, former Days Gone director Jeff Ross tweeted this out, on the same day that Sony had its latest State of Play:
“A lot of people still ask me if there will ever be a Days Gone sequel, so I submit this poster as evidence it will never happen. Sony higher ups like Hermen were never fans, so you won’t hear about it at the PlayStation State of Play today or ever.”
Hermen Hulst, of course, is now PlayStation Studio Business Group CEO. Jeff was right to single him out by name because Hermen is literally in charge of producing PlayStation’s first party games. As has long been alleged by other former Sony employees, Hermen has a preference for Guerrilla Games’ Horizon series. Of course, Hermen was a co-founder of Guerrilla Games, and was still their managing director when they published Horizon Zero Dawn.
But Days Gone also had its own fans, if it wasn’t quite as unanimously critically acclaimed as Sony’s marquee franchises, like Uncharted, God of War, and The Last Of Us. Upon its original release on the PlayStation 4 in 2019, it hit 71 on MetaCritic. The 2021 version was only slightly better received, with a MetaCritic of 76. Because of the Insomniac hack, we know that the game sold 7.32 million units as of February 2022.
Based on reviews collated for the MetaCritic, criticisms against Days Gone focused on technical launch issues, the open world game design, and its story had a mixed reception. Still, the game seems to have an at least vocal fanbase online, and they will always talk about how Days Gone deserves to have a sequel. Ross himself repeats the claim that Sony chose not to make more Days Gone games, or move forward with a film adaptation, in favor of The Last of Us.
Days Gone would not be the first franchise that Sony chose to retire, for various reasons. Knack likely isn’t coming back because of the same lack of success, financially and in hitting it off with fans.
But there are also hugely successful franchises, like the Resistance and Killzone series, that may have lost steam but could still hold potential for a revival. But then, Sony isn’t particularly gifted with an aptitude for identifying what games will be successful in the future.
The train of thought to not bring back SOCOM, but create a clearly derivative new online shooter in Concord, is not only tone deaf to what their own fans want, but is obviously chasing trends over taking bold risks. But perhaps we should acknowledge that many times, taking risks just doesn’t pay off. It may ultimately be for the best that Sony doesn’t risk their financial standing even further with another Days Gone.
