Days Gone game director Jeff Ross, formerly of Sony Bend, developers of the game recently talked about how he and the team felt that the game was a “big disappointment.” He said that local studio management was the reason for this. Last year, a new report detailed what PlayStation has in store for PlayStation 5. The report also revealed tension between PlayStation of some of its developers. One of those developers and games that was talked about was Sony Bend and Days Gone. According to the report, Sony Bend pitched a sequel but nothing came of it. Critical reception to the game was mixed and development on the game was lengthy. Despite everything, over the past year and a half, Days Gone has seen somewhat of a renaissance, selling over 8 million copies from the time Jeff left Sony Bend, selling more since, and then selling a million+ on Steam when the game was released on PC. Ross tweeted out this, responding to the news about Ghost of Tsushima’s recent sales milestone, selling over 8 million copies.
Talking about plans for the sequel, Ross said that the team was to make a kind of shared universe with co-op play. The sequel would have all the assets and systems that was built in the first game but repurposed for a multiplayer version of the Days Gone universe. “So [it] would be with guys like Deacon trying to survive, building up a clubhouse or a crew. I think it would be fun to be in that world cooperatively and see what horde battles could be like,” Ross said. Responding to a tweet about the turned-down sequel, Ross agreed with the idea of the second game benefiting from what the studio learned from while making the first game and how they typically are better the second time because of that.
Jeff Ross also talked about how development was on the game. According to Ross, the team was small for an open-world game, and it was a slog. They were able to leverage a lot of gameplay systems and some automated population tools so he was amazed that they were able to finish it at all.
Jeff Ross also talked about how the reviews from the press and critics didn’t help with Days Gone continuing. He also responded to another question regarding what’s next for Days Gone. He said that he has heard that Sony and PlayStation has no plans to sell the IP to another publisher, even though many would like to see a sequel.
After his tweet went out, there has been a lot of discussions online about Sony Bend, Days Gone, and how and why everything went the way it did. Regardless, Ross thanked everyone for the support and announced that he and the Creative Director of Days Gone, John Garvin will make another appearance on David Jaffe’s podcast. When Garvin talked about everything last year, he said “don’t complain if game doesn’t get a sequel if it wasn’t supported at launch.”