Days Gone Remastered PS5 Review – Riding to a Better Apocalypse

When Days Gone originally launched on PS4 back in 2019, I was among those who found it hard to connect with Bend Studio’s vision. After spending roughly three hours riding through Oregon’s post-apocalyptic wilderness, I walked away disappointed. The dull mission design, weak storytelling, and overwhelming technical issues made the journey with Deacon St. John feel more tedious than thrilling.

Six years later, Days Gone Remastered finally lets Bend Studio’s post-apocalyptic ambitions shine properly on the PlayStation 5. For the first time, I could genuinely appreciate every detail of this dreadful world, from the beautifully grim animations of the Freakers to the haunting moonlight that cuts through darker nights.

And yet, despite all these improvements, I couldn’t help but wonder: is this remaster truly enough to elevate Days Gone from a once-unremarkable open-world zombie game into something worth revisiting? Or is it just a last-ditch effort to breathe life into a game that, while promising, never quite hit the mark?

TL;DR

Days Gone Remastered brings smoother performance, richer audio, and a handful of new modes to a once-overlooked open-world zombie game. The core story and gameplay remain the same—flawed but immersive. If you skipped it the first time around, now’s the best time to give Deacon’s ride a chance.

Story – Deacon’s Journey Through a Broken World

Days Gone Remastered drops us back into the harsh aftermath of a global pandemic, where most of humanity has either been wiped out or turned into Freakers. Our tough protagonist, the amusingly named Deacon St. John, is a drifter and bounty hunter roaming the eerie wilderness of post-apocalyptic Oregon with his trustworthy companion Boozer.

Two years after the collapse, Deacon is still haunted by the memory of his wife Sarah, presumed dead during the outbreak. When Boozer is badly injured just before their planned escape to the north, Deacon is forced to put their plans on hold, scraping by doing jobs for various survivor camps scattered across the region.

The narrative plays of Days Gone Remastered out through smaller episodic arcs rather than a clear overarching mission. Characters like Lisa, a really traumatised girl struggling to adapt to the new world, and morally grey figures like Ada Tucker or the hard-edged Iron Mike help anchor the story with some emotional weight. But the pacing struggles, stuck by repetitive errands and Deacon’s endless, muttering monologues that wear thin fast.

Deacon himself remains a controversial figure. He constantly swings between violent outbursts, and over-sentimentality. And while the writing often falls into cliché territory, the cinematic cutscenes somewhat balance it out in key moments, helping the story land when it counts.

Gameplay – Combat, Chaos, and Constant Refuelling

If you’ve played an open-world action game in the past decade, Days Gone Remastered gameplay loop won’t surprise you. It revolves around scavenging, upgrading, and exploring a massive post-apocalyptic Oregon on your trusty motorcycle. You’ll fight off both human marauders and Freaker hordes while managing your bike, resources, and stamina.

Riding through the wilderness should be exhilarating, and at times it is. But the constant need to repair and refuel your bike quickly becomes tedious, especially during the game’s early hours. It adds a layer of survival realism, sure, but the frequency of these interruptions chips away at immersion.

Combat, meanwhile, is a mixed bag in Days Gone Remastered. Gunplay is solid, especially when you’re well-equipped and ready to unload, but melee combat feels stiff and imprecise, lacking the fluidity you’d hope for in close encounters.

Weapons feel punchy, and headshots are satisfying, particularly when you’ve got a powerful rifle or shotgun in hand and you’re facing off against smaller Freaker packs or human enemies. There’s weight to every bullet, and firefights can be genuinely intense when you’re outnumbered.

That said, once things get up close and personal, the cracks start to show. Melee attacks in Days Gone Remastered are functional, sure, but they lack finesse. Swinging a bat or a machete feels more like brute-force guesswork than strategic brawling. You’re often just hammering a button and hoping for the best, rather than feeling like you’re in control of the encounter.

And then there’s stealth—present, but rarely enjoyable. Enemy AI is inconsistent, vision cones feel overly forgiving or absurdly strict, and the tools you’re given never really evolve past the basics. Sneaking around feels more like a chore than an alternative, and stealth-only sections in particular felt more like roadblocks. Personally, I found myself abandoning stealth entirely after a few attempts and switched to full-on chaos. Guns blazing might not always be the cleanest approach, but it’s easily the most satisfying one.

Thankfully for Days Gone Remastered, the Freaker hordes remain a standout feature. These dynamic, fast-moving swarms are genuinely terrifying and demand tactical thinking. Strategizing my approach, setting traps, and barely making it out alive delivered some of the most exciting moments in the entire game.

What helps tie it all together is the DualSense integration. Haptic feedback made riding the bike feel intuitive. Each bump, gear shift, and gruesome crunch of tires over infected corpses buzzes through your hands. Even subtle environmental effects, like rainfall or skidding through mud, translate through the controller, which boosted immersion during the game.

Despite some rough edges in its mechanics, Days Gone Remastered feels like a far more refined version of its original self. The core loop still has its flaws, but the improved performance and DualSense integration add enough depth to make the ride noticeably more immersive, and a lot more enjoyable.

Visuals & Audio – Oregon Looks Better in 60 FPS

Days Gone Remastered on PS5 offers a range of visual improvements, but they’re more of a refinement than a full revamp. The upgrades are noticeable in certain aspects, especially when played on a high-end display, but not transformative across the board.

The Oregon wilderness remains one of the game’s strongest assets, and this version sharpens it up just enough to let it breathe. Dense forests look richer, weather effects like rain or snowfall add depth to each scene, and distant mountaintops now have a crisper sense of scale. From rundown camps to abandoned towns overtaken by nature, the world of Days Gone Remastered feels tough, raw, realistic and believable.

The remaster brings enhanced lighting and shadow rendering, sharper textures, improved draw distances, and denser, more detailed foliage. Texture pop-in, a common issue in the original, has been significantly reduced, leading to a more stable and immersive open-world experience. Transitions between areas are also smoother, helping the game feel more fluid and cohesive than the occasionally jarring PS4 version.

Interestingly, the improvements can look sharper on the PS5 Pro, thanks to Sony’s PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) upscaling tech. Meanwhile, some players on the base PS5 report a slightly blurrier image than the original PS4 version running in backwards compatibility mode, likely due to differing upscaling methods and resolution handling.

Most importantly, Days Gone Remastered offers two modes that let you choose your preferred experience between a smooth 60 FPS at 1440p or a higher resolution 4K mode capped at 30 FPS. I spent the majority of my playthrough in performance mode, and the upgrade was felt immediately. No stutters, no texture hiccups—just a consistently smooth ride, even when the screen was packed with enemies, explosions, or rain-soaked scenery.

If this is your first time playing Days Gone, the remastered version delivers the best and most stable visual experience so far. For returning players, the visual changes alone might not be dramatic enough to justify a replay, but the smoother performance and reduction in graphical hiccups are definitely welcome upgrades.

New Modes & Features – More Ways to Survive (or Die Trying)

While the core campaign hasn’t changed, Days Gone Remastered brings some new content to the table, most notably Horde Assault Mode. This arcade-style challenge pits players against massive waves of Freakers. It’s frantic, chaotic fun, at least for a while.

You can pick from 18 characters, each with preset loadouts, and take advantage of an Injector system that lets you trade penalties for score multipliers. It’s a nice break from the main story, though the lack of deeper progression or co-op makes its replay value debatable.

Permadeath and Speedrun modes also make an appearance for the more hardcore crowd. They won’t appeal to everyone, but they’re solid additions for those chasing an extra challenge.

On a quieter note, Days Gone Remastered adds some meaningful accessibility improvements, including customizable subtitles, highlighting items with different colors, auto-completion for QTEs, and adjustable gameplay speed to name a few. It’s not groundbreaking, but it makes the experience more inclusive, which is always welcome.

Conclusion – A Better Ride, Even If the Road’s the Same

Days Gone Remastered doesn’t reinvent the wheel; it just finally gives the game the engine it deserved. Underneath the sharper visuals, smoother performance, and bonus content, this is still Deacon St. John’s slow-burning road trip through a brutal apocalypse. But this time, it runs like it should.

The PS5’s technical upgrades help bring the world to life in a way that the PS4 never could. The audio is excellent, the performance is stable, and DualSense implementation pulls you deeper into the chaos. The writing and pacing still won’t be for everyone, but there’s now enough polish to recommend Days Gone Remastered to players who missed the ride the first time around.

No, it’s not a must-play masterpiece. But it’s a compelling reminder that Days Gone, for all its flaws, deserved better. And now, it finally gets its second chance.

We would like to thank PlayStation Greece for providing the review copy we used.