Why Days Gone Devs Removed the Choice System

Now that Bend Studios' open-world title Days Gone has arrived on the PlayStation 4, players are [...]

By Eric Garrett

Now that Bend Studios' open-world title Days Gone has arrived on the PlayStation 4, players are taking to the Freaker-infested Pacific Northwest with one goal in mind: survive. Well, that and keeping the bike fueled up. That said, the title has seemingly kicked things off with a flat tire for some people, but that hasn't stopped a good portion of players from enjoying the game. One reason that may be impacting the opinion of some might have something to do with a missing feature that was shown in a previous trailer for Days Gone - a choice system.

In alpha gameplay of the first hour of Days Gone that was revealed last year, we saw a choice system implemented. Most notably, players were presented with the choice between leaving Leon, or shooting him, which would have resulted in a more merciful death. However, in the version of the game that shipped just a few days ago, these choices weren't present.

The reason why these choices weren't available in the final version of Days Gone was because the developers had a particular story they wanted to tell. When speaking with Screen Rant, creative director John Garvin said that the choice system was confusing players. "We thought it was going to be this awesome thing where Boozer's morale was going to be this thing players would have to watch, but players just didn't understand it," he said. "For the amount of work we were putting into it, there was no payoff. It was hurting the player experience."

Days gone Choices
(Photo: YouTube)

While the decision to remove player choice from Days Gone made things a lot more linear, Garvin notes that it actually strengthened Deacon as a character. "But the biggest thing was, it made Deacon's character stronger," he said. "We just made the choice for the player. So Deacon will always shoot Leon in the first twenty minutes, and Deacon will always leave Boozer's shotgun. We just basically made the choices in every case where we had them, and it was always making the character stronger."

Days Gone is currently available on PlayStation 4. For more on the exclusive game, here is a snippet from our official review:

"If you average out Days Gone's shortcomings with its redeeming moments, you're left with a game that's just perfectly alright in every sense of the word, nothing more though perhaps a bit less. There are certainly those who are hyped for Days Gone and will no doubt enjoy everything Bend Studio and Sony has to offer while patiently awaiting the free content and bug fixes that are to come. For those who held a casual or tentative interest, though, it's a game best bought on sale or used to hold you over until your next big purchase."

What do you think about this? Are you glad that the devs removed the choice system from Days Gone, or could the game have improved from letting players make choices? Sound off in the comment section below, or feel free to hit me up over on Twitter @anarkE7!

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