Days Gone has been in the headlines quite a bit over the last year, ever since it came to light that a pitch for a sequel for SIE Bend Studio (who’re currently working on a new open world IP) had been rejected by Sony.
Most recently, when Sony announced that Ghost of Tsushima had sold over 8 million units, Days Gone game director Jeff Ross, who is no longer at Bend, sent out a tweet in which he stated that Days Gone had sold over 8 million copies in less than two years, in addition to at least a million more on Steam, but that in spite of the sales, “studio management” always made them feel like the game was “a big disappointment.”
As you might imagine, there has been a fair bit of backlash against Sony since then. Recently, however, Ross spoke about his tweet while speaking with God of War and Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe, which provided some important context for what he said (via Push Square).
As it turns out, Ross got the sales figures he mentioned from now-defunct Trophy-tracking website Gamestat. Gamestat’s numbers tended to be rough estimates as it was owing to the site’s very nature, while it’s also important to note that numbers on the site also used to include used copies, rentals, game sharing, free PS Plus giveaways, and the like, which means that the actual sales numbers are lower than the figures Ross mentioned. Of course, exactly how big of a gap there is is unknown, especially with Sony not having provided any official sales figures for Days Gone.
Meanwhile, Ross also explained in the video that the “local studio management” he referred to in his tweet wasn’t PlayStation studios management, but management at SIE Bend Studio itself, which means the Days Gone 2 pitch never made it past even that stage.
