When they’re given moments to play off one another, each sells the relationship. (Much credit, though, to the actors-especially the central trio of Sam Witwer (Deacon), Jim Pirri (Boozer), and Courtnee Draper (Sarah)-for imbuing their characters with enough humanity in key moments to sometimes paper over the compromised writing. It’s not hard to imagine a much stronger game where those three were playing off one another, and it’s wild how much this extremely long game simultaneously feels deeply underwritten. Boozer? He’s sidelined for Story Reasons in the opening hour of the game. We never get such generous time with anyone in Days Gone. Fast forward two years into the future, and it’s Deacon and Boozer on the road. Deacon shoves Sarah on the chopper, and in a moment meant to lay the groundwork for Deacon’s inherent goodness, he stays behind with Boozer, fearing he won’t survive what comes next. Deacon and Boozer, his biker buddy, track down a government helicopter, but it only has room for-wait for it-two.
Deacon’s wife, Sarah, has been stabbed and is bleeding out. The game opens in the midst of the freaker panic. Days Gone has neither, despite what its many hours of dour cutscenes with people acting extremely serious tries to suggest. A moral code, applying old norms in a world without “rules,” is a post-apocalyptic trope because it’s classically effective at drawing tension from the base premise: life would be easier if you treated everyone like disposable garbage, but what’s that mean for the soul? But using this trope effectively requires either careful setup or especially sharp execution, and ideally both.
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