Days Gone

Days Gone has one of the more distinctive review arcs in this library: a game that launched to mixed critical reception and has spent the years since quietly, steadily winning over the people who actually played it. Its reviewers are unusually explicit about this gap, and it's worth understanding alongside a genuinely serious controversy that shaped its earliest Steam reputation.

A game reviewers say deserved better

"I don't understand why this game was so harshly criticized by many reviewers. From my point of view it's by far one of the best games I've played," reads a representative 2024 review, and that specific framing — surprise at how much better the actual experience was than expected — recurs constantly. Reviewers consistently single out the motorcycle traversal and customization systems as genuinely distinctive, and several describe an emotional arc that caught them off guard given the game's generic-sounding zombie-apocalypse premise. "This is proof Sony studios doesn't play their own games. How do you not green light a sequel," reads another, reflecting a real, sustained cult following that's grown rather than faded since 2019.

A genuinely severe launch controversy

Here's what actually dominates this game's negative reviews, and it deserves to be reported precisely because it's unusually serious: at PC launch in May 2021, Days Gone shipped with a data- collection policy independently confirmed by press coverage to track keystrokes and file system details while the game ran. Sony Bend told press this was implemented as an anti-cheat measure — a justification many found questionable given the game has no multiplayer component at all. The single most-upvoted negative review in this game's entire history carries 11,676 votes, describing the practice in stark terms and recommending firewall blocking as a workaround. "Collecting my data while the game is running to 'prevent hacks in a single-player game'? I don't think so," reads another representative review. Sony subsequently added an option to disable the data collection following the backlash — a real, meaningful fix — but the controversy's scale has left a lasting mark on how this game is discussed on Steam years later, with reviewers as recently as 2024 still writing detailed firewall-configuration guides referencing it.

Reading the completion data

With 67 tracked achievements, the completion curve shows strong initial engagement — the first milestone sits at 95.9%, an unusually high figure showing nearly every buyer who launches the game gets started successfully. Completion falls off more gradually than many open-world games through the mid-tier achievements, down to around 70-80%, before the rarest late-game and full-completion achievements drop under 1%, reflecting a game with real depth for players who stick with it.

7.5 out of 10. Days Gone earns real, deserved credit for a genuinely atmospheric survival experience that reviewers consistently describe outperforming its initial reputation, and its motorcycle-focused traversal remains a distinctive strength in the genre. The score reflects a serious, well-documented 2021 privacy controversy that was real, independently confirmed, and eventually addressed with an opt-out — but whose scale has left a lasting impression on how this game gets discussed even now. Check your privacy settings on first launch, then give the actual game the chance its own players say it deserves.