Former Xbox and Blizzard exec recommends Days Gone and strongly disagrees with release reviews…

You may remember Days Gone, an open-world survival action game developed by Bend Studios. Today, he received an appreciative statement from the former head of Blizzard. The same one who praised The Last of Us: Part 1 weeks ago and called on Naughty Dog to port the second game. He did the same with Horizon Forbidden West, while praising PlayStation’s strategy for PC releases.

A few hours ago, Blizzard’s former president took to his X/Twitter account to both comment on his disagreement with Days Gone’s critical scores and to recommend the title developed by Bend Studio.

“This game is an 85-88 in my mind. No way it’s as low as it was initially reviewed,” he explains. He also says that this is a game that captures “the wilderness environment, brothers forever, and overall tone very well.”

Ybarra sums it up as follows: “It’s on Steam – snag it if you haven’t yet, well worth it.” The former Xbox executive refers to the scores he received at the time of release. The PS4 version currently has an average press rating of 71 on Metacritic. The PC received 76 points. This is in stark contrast to the opinion of PC gamers. Days Gone has a 92% positive rating on Steam, while it boasts 4.6 out of 5 stars on the PS Store. We loved the game at the time, as our colleague BadSector wrote in his review.

Days Gone 2 could have been released a long time ago?!

It’s been almost a year since the director of Days Gone reacted to the PlayStation Showcase 2023 as follows: “These PS Showcases annoy me a little because they only remind me that Days Gone 2 could have been released a month ago if we had stuck to our plan”. Jeff Ross then attacked the “vigilante critics” who gave negative reviews of the game at the time.

Days Gone was intended to be a trilogy, and the title did very well commercially, selling over 10 million copies, but Sony didn’t like the initial reviews.

And Shawn Layden’s departure put an end to seeing DG2. The game is also known to be getting its own long-awaited film adaptation. It will star Sam Heughan, the star of the Outlander series. As for the next title, Bend Studio is looking for people with experience in games as a service. All signs indicate this as a new IP that showcases a different open world.

Source: X, Metacritic

This game is an 85-88 in my mind. No way it's as low as it was initially reviewed. They capture the wilderness environment, brothers forever, and overall tone very well. It's on Steam – snag it if you haven't yet, well worth it. @BendStudio @reesechris pic.twitter.com/A56UzfYBe5

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) April 20, 2024