The popular zombie action is finally moving from the Playstation to the PC. Does it make sense to reach for it?

Sony continues its campaign to bring the greatest hits from the Playstation platform to PC gamers as well, and after a series of popular Adventures from the Quantic Dream studio and the excellent sci-fi Horizon Zero Dawn, we have another step. Days Gone may not be at the forefront of the platform, but in its time it pleasantly surprised and managed to offer a beautiful open world, uncompromising hordes of the undead and brisk action. How did it turn out when jumping on the PC?

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks

As this is an almost faithful copy of the console version of the game, for details on the story, gameplay and other universal essentials, we recommend sharpening our console review, where you will learn everything you need to know about how the title is played. In this review, we will focus only on the changes in the PC version and whether the keyboard and mouse play better. 

However, let us outline only a brief basic story premise of the game. The player will take on the role of former soldier and biker Deacon St. John, who threw himself into mercenary work after the outbreak of the plague, travels the road with his friend Boozer on his faithful motorcycle and tries to find a way to a better tomorrow. At times you are bothered by memories of your dead wife, but the main task is to survive. Everything is still mixed up by the government departments of NERO, which are obviously researching and preparing something unfair.

The story is definitely not the main reason why to play the title, even though it can really surprise and captivate several times, the constantly fluctuating pace of adrenaline definitely does not help. On the contrary, what can attract are action shootouts and battles with hordes of the undead, which are now rendered much more on the PC and at a much friendlier pace even 120 frames per second. The beautiful smoothness of the game is one of the biggest advantages of the PC version, as you really need to have an accurate line of sight and a minimum of jams on the screen with hundreds of zombies, which is doing well here. 

All active PC users will certainly enjoy the full support of the keyboard and mouse, not the often sloppy conversion of the control scheme, for which it is equally best to connect a gamepad. The control of the mice is fast and precise here, and especially in the hectic passages (and there are not a few of them) it definitely helps to keep everything under control. I vividly remember repeating sprints from the horde through obstacle-laden villages just because I missed the lever or didn’t turn the camera fast enough. The combination of keyboard and mouse eliminates this ailment and is much more comfortable to play. 

No technological cutters

Another feature that most PC versions are characterized by is graphical progress and better setup options. Here, too, there is no lack of support for ultra-widescreen monitors or more or less unlimited shooting, which will please. But if I have to talk purely about the graphic qualities of the game, you will really know the difference compared to the console version only minimally. Sure, the jump from the PS4 version is more noticeable, especially the much greater distance of plotting vegetation and its higher resolution and quality of detail, but I deliberately tried the game on PS5 and then on PC and I felt almost no difference.

As almost always, the PC version boasts better color grading and higher sharpness, led by 4K resolution. Personally, however, I found the graphics from the PS5 much cleaner and more believable in color, and that’s all there is to say. The icing on the cake is the absence of popular technologies recently, such as ray tracing or DLSS, which are missing in the case of Days Gone. Sure, you won’t find many reflections in the woods, but the PC version is supposed to be the best that the game has to offer at the moment, and ray tracing developers today can pull almost anywhere. But what is not missing is the photo mode, which makes the graphics really stand out and even offers a mode with super high resolution. To make the wallpaper look beautiful. 

As a result, I have slightly mixed feelings from the PC version. Despite its ailments, I enjoyed the original game incredibly and the same goes for the PC version if you are sitting at it for the first time. Riding in the woods still has its charm, shootings are action and bloody, and sprints from a horde of zombies never get tired. But the game jumped out of the console with still as stereotypical and fluctuating gameplay, an ordinary story and now even with a slightly sloppy graphic design, which has not gone as long from its console brother as we would have imagined. However, this does not change the fact that we can boldly recommend the game to fans of this genre without consoles in the living room.