Every Mission of Days Gone Can Play out Differently, so It Seems
A large portion of Days Gone, the open-world game by SIE Bend Studio, remains a mystery. At least, we’re assuming much of it is a mystery and everything we’ve seen thus far doesn’t make up the whole. Among its facets are dynamic events; we know this. But according to a recent interview with GamesTM, these may be more dynamic than we initially thought.
Senior Programmer of Days Gone, David Chisum, revealed that there’s an entire team dedicated to implementing Dynamic events. Essentially, they craft the system and identify exactly when and where everything takes place.
“Yes, every mission will have the same goal – the same end point – but there are a lot of different systems in Days Gone that just operate out in the open world, and those can play out in so many different ways depending on how you deal with them.
“The ambush clothesline is a good example of that, and there are many more we’ve yet to reveal.”
The “Ambush clothesline” Chisum mentioned was showcased at Sony’s E3 2017 press conference. As the main character pursued a mission, a seemingly random event popped up whereby he had to neutralize a pack of ambushers. Later on, we discovered an alternative playthrough. You as the player may come upon the enemy as they are setting up the ambush. As our own Shawn Petraschuck noted in a Days Gone preview session: “In the end, while the mission was essentially the same, the journey from start to finish was completely different.” The enemies you face and the weather will likely vary, depending on when you moving through a certain area of the game.
Chisum Continued talking more about the events at length:
“We have a dedicated team at Bend Studio that’s making these kind of events and creating ways to place them around the world, depending on where the player is, what level they are, and what they’re doing. It’s not always going to be humans, it’s not always going to be Freakers – it’s sometimes going to be both, or animals might get involved.
“How they interact with each other depends on how the world is looking at the time. The time of day impacts the population of the Freakers out in the world, and the awareness of the Marauders. On top of this – and this can happen at any time in any weather – we’ve also got dynamic events, such as Runners, infected wolves, and Ragers, which are the infected bears.
“These infected animals aren’t scripted, they happen in the world depending on what time of day it is, what you’re doing in the world, and what the weather’s doing, too. In general, the Freakers prefer nighttime and wetter environments, so that’s always something you should keep in mind.”
Furthermore, Chisum just mentioned player “level’ for the first time. Will we see a classic progression system in Days Gone? We’ll expect to find out on the road to release, which will be no sooner than late 2018, so there’s still plenty of time.
What are your thoughts on the game’s dynamic event system? Are you up for the sandbox surprises? Comment down below.