TheDaniBethea
Tokyo Game Show 2018 continues to terrify; animal adversaries make their debut in the latest trailer from Bend Studios’ open-world survival horror Days Gone. With zombies of every variety, it appears that both humans and animals alike are a great threat to survival. There’s no image more jarring than seeing the exposed bone and muscle of a bear, except maybe the boil-and-sore lesioned bands of wolves that stalk you in the woods as you flee for your life.
The uninfected people in any good apocalypse are usually your biggest threat. They will hunt for your resources, kill you over petty squabbles, then gloat that they bested you so single-handedly. This behavior sounds oddly prescient, especially with the plethora of end-of-world movies, games, and tv shows released in the last few years, and those looming on the horizon. Speaking of treading familiar ground, Days Gone has yet to show any new locations. The angles have varied in regards to the action, but there’s still nothing new except for a select few animal encounters. The forest encampment shows up again, alongside the sawmill where the zombie tidal wave runs rampant. It is impressive that the developers have managed to create this many varied trailers from basically two locations. I suppose they’re keeping a lot of surprises close to the vest.
This was something subtle, almost acute if you weren’t looking for it, but there have been minimal women characters shown within the in-game trailers. The last one that we’ve seen is leading a tribe of uninfected humans in the 2017 E3 gameplay trailer at the 3:10 mark. There’s also a blink and you miss it moment in the same trailer where a romantic love interest is spoken of but seems to have no bearing on the story at large. There’s a severe shortage of uninfected female characters but there’s certainly a plethora of the opposite, such as the screeching stringy-haired infected zombie woman. I realize the game has yet to debut, so there’s a lot we still don’t know. However, the developers are missing out on a larger demographic swath with its lack of representation. I hope there are some female biker gangs that get in on this zombie action too.
The trailer concludes with a scene from the last few trailers with the grand set piece where zombies swarm from all directions at an abandoned sawmill. Perhaps this will be the beginning, middle, or end of the game. We’ll all know where this scene and all the frightening others exist in-world when Days Gone releases in February 2019.
