Days Gone PC Review — Years passed, but Days Gone on PC?

Gone were the days of PlayStation exclusivity for some of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s games as we can now review Days Gone on PC! Can this open world zombie survival game survive on a gaming laptop? Or would it bug out at launch like Horizon Zero Dawn‘s PC port?

While we will answer that in this Days Gone PC review, note that we will not be delving deep into the game’s content or story (it is exactly the same as the PS4 version). Rather, we will be focusing on how well optimised it is on PC and how it stands against the original PS4 version. If you are considering getting Days Gone on PS4 instead of PC, feel free to read our PS4 review of the game instead.

That said, let’s dive into this review!

PC Specs

We played Days Gone on the Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021). We ran the game with the following settings:

The Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021) that we had ran on:

• 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-10875H 8 Cores (2.3GHz / 5.1GHz)
• Discrete: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 VRAM
• 1TB SSD (M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4) + Open M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 Slot for easy expansion
• 32GB dual-channel DDR4-2933MHz (16GB x 2)

Graphics

As expected, the game’s visuals are a lot sharper and much better overall compared to the PS4 version. This is practically a given, considering how much stronger the Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021) is compared to a PS4 from 2013.

Visually, Bend Studio did a great job optimising the PC port. In particular, the Dynamic Weather System the PS4 version had looked fantastic on PC, with every raindrop giving off a realistic feeling. The only minor gripe that I had was the lack of DLSS support, which most PC games have nowadays. Regardless, the game is still visually immersive overall.

Running the game at the maximum settings scored an average of 75 FPS. I also tried playing the game on medium and low graphic settings, and the game ran at 130 FPS and 180 FPS respectively. As a result, the game is still playable at lower graphic settings on older, less powerful PCs with GTX 780 graphics card and Intel Core i5-2500K or better.

Controls

With a keyboard and mouse, the controls feel as fluid as the PS4 version, if not better. The movement of the player character, Deacon, is fine with the WASD keys. I also feel that aiming with a mouse is more precise than with a controller’s joystick.

Regardless, if you still prefer to use controllers, you are in luck! The game supports not only PS4 Dualshock controllers, but you can also play the game with PS5 Dualsense, Xbox and Switch Pro controllers.

Performance

Most of you reading are probably worried about this the most. Thankfully, I have not encountered a single bug or any weird delays when playing the game. It is safe to say that the game is bug-free.

As for loading speed, the 36GB RAM and 1TB SSD of my laptop make it a lot faster than playing the game on a PS4. The gameplay is smooth overall with consistent FPS, as mentioned previously.

Closing Thoughts

As the second formerly PlayStation-exclusive PC port after Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone does justice to the original PS4 version. Sony Interactive Entertainment learned from their mistakes with Horizon Zero Dawn. The bug-free launch of Days Gone is a positive sign for PC gamers who are hoping for more PlayStation exclusives coming to PC in the future.

Overall, if you are looking for an open world single-player zombie survival game on PC, definitely consider Days Gone. If you are interested, check out the game on Steam.

Days Gone (PC) review copy provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Game reviewed on Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021).

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