Sequels and remakes are tricky to get right. It can be hard to preserve the charm and quality of the original in a follow-up. It can be even tougher to surpass and iterate on what the first game did so well. Some games are just absolutely begging to be expanded upon with a new entry, and it’s those that we’ll be highlighting here. Each of these titles represents a ‘what if’ that gamers are hungry to see happen one day, but whether due to corporate meddling or cancellations, they still seem so far away.

So with that, here are the ten games whose surprise trailers would make the community absolutely lose it.

Days Gone 2

While the odds of a Days Gone sequel remains unlikely, Sony Bend has managed to stir hype thanks to the game’s April 2025 remaster. with its remaster. Days Gone Remaster finally smooths out the original’s rough framerate while enhancing its visuals with better shadows and 4K resolution. That release reignited hope for a sequel, but those hopes were eventually crushed when Sony Bend posted a job listing seeking someone with “experience with multiplayer game development and design.” The studio has a history of outright dismissing any possibility of a sequel in the past as well, but demand remains high, and where there’s demand, there’s money. Knowing Sony, it wouldn’t be completely implausible to eventually see a Days Gone 2 in the future, especially if fans remain vocal about it.

The Saboteur 2

Remember Pandemic? No, not the 2020 one, the studio that brought us Destroy All Humans and Mercenaries Playground of Destruction. The Saboteur was their last game before being dissolved into the rest of EA, and it had a lot of unique things going for it. Sure, it followed the Ubisoft open-world design ethos, but the WWII France setting and the mechanic of restoring color to liberated districts stood out. Now imagine how cool a sequel with top-notch voice talent and an actually compelling story would be. With EA’s enormous budget and the creative potential of that setting, a Saboteur 2 could finally give us a GTA-style game set in WWII Europe, but it’s a long shot at best.

Uncharted 5

The last time we ventured into the world of Uncharted was 2017’s spin-off starring Chloe and Nadine. Lost Legacy seemed to be paving the way for the next generation of Uncharted with its more open-ended exploration and, well, lack of Nathan Drake. Of course, Nathan’s story isn’t necessarily over following the ending of Uncharted 4. Like Indy coming out of retirement in the latest Indiana Jones films, Nathan can be called for one last globe-trotting adventure. Uncharted 5 is rather likely to happen at some point. Naughty Dog has been working on a project led by Uncharted writer Shaun Escayg for years now, and it’s not Intergalactic. It’s unlikely we’ll see Uncharted 5 before Intergalactic releases, but we sure hope to see it at some point.

Bloodborne 2

Is there any video game sequel more craved than Bloodborne 2? Bloodborne is the one gigantic Sony-owned IP that somehow just keeps getting overlooked. The Last of Us got numerous remasters and even Days Gone just received one. What is Sony waiting for? Well, one thing’s certain: if Bloodborne 2 were announced, it would be the only game capable of rivaling GTA 6 in sheer hype. Here’s hoping it avoids the multiplayer-heavy direction of FromSoftware’s recent projects and instead doubles down on the slow-burn, atmospheric exploration that made the original Bloodborne unforgettable.

Titanfall 3

Titanfall 3 occupies the same heartbreaking territory as Bloodborne 2: everyone wants it, yet EA refuses to greenlight it. The first cancellation came in 2019, when EA halted development in favor of Apex Legends, chasing the booming hero-shooter market and its lucrative ongoing revenue. Then, earlier in 2025, The developer had to shutter their planned Titanfall extraction shooter due to layoffs. What made Titanfall 2 so special was its well-paced and wildly inventive single-player campaign. It’s probably the last significant FPS campaign that I can think of that wasn’t a Doom title. It’s still not an impossibility that the developer gets a legitimate opportunity to make Titanfall 3, but a major shift in EA’s priorities needs to happen first.

Sleeping Dogs 2

This one’s more of a pipe dream than others on this list. Sleeping Dogs is a very popular cult classic for a reason; it oozed personality and was a genuine counterpart to GTA. Unfortunately, the development studio, United Front Games, shut down in 2016. The main developer still holds the rights to the Sleeping Dogs IP, though, so maybe there is a snowball’s chance in Southtown for it to happen. The studio’s MMO spin-off, Triad Wars, took place within the universe of Sleeping Dogs. launched briefly in open beta but was quickly shut down after poor reception. But imagine a thoroughbred sequel to Sleeping Dogs, one that wasn’t a sloppy MMO, but a single-player game with a more intricate Hong Kong map filled with fully realized martial-arts combat propelled by modern processing power. A proper Sleeping Dogs 2 could be incredible.

Metal Gear 1 Remake

“I FEEL ASLEEP!!” Imagine that iconic line from the 1988 NES version of the original Metal Gear (first released in 1987) being fully voiced in a modern, high-fidelity remake. Unlike polished and cleaned up script of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I’d want Konami to preserve the hilarious botched translation of the original. It would both honor Kojima and provide some charm to the game. Of course, the fully blown HD graphics and character renderings would probably make those lines extra awkward, but hey, that’s what makes the series so lovable, right? The good news is a remake of the original Metal Gear isn’t impossible. Konami has shown a willingness to remake classic Metal Gear Solid titles faithfully. And what better candidates than the very first games from the ’80s?

New Dino Crisis

Forget a new Dino Crisis—I’d settle for a remaster or a full remake of the first game. Oh, who am I kidding, I want a new Dino Crisis, sigh. The developer sits on the most beloved dormant IP, barely acknowledging series that fans have begged to see return. Who doesn’t want a new Mega Man (especially Legends), Breath of Fire, or of course, Dino Crisis? Dino Crisis—a 90s survival-horror game —never grew past its more action-oriented 2003 third entry. But fans still swear by the first game, which followed the classic Resident Evil formula in a Jurassic Park-inspired setting. A modern-day game firing on all cylinders would do justice to the original Dino Crisis if RE 2 and RE 3 Remakes are anything to go by. But just imagine what they could do with a completely new entry with the mature horror and first-person perspective of, say, Resident Evil 7.

A New inFamous

Continuing the trend of studios sitting on a golden goose is Sucker Punch and their dormant inFamous series. There was a time when a new InFamous game was the talk of the gaming town. It was a series about open world parkouring around realistic city-scapes. But one element that sets inFamous apart is its Karma system. You can choose your morality in these games, something that shows itself in the powers you unlock as well as key story decisions. With today’s more advanced processing and capabilities, the potential of that system is enormous. Imagine branching storylines, deeper morality-driven powers, and immersive-sim-style world reactions. Heck, just adding more customization elements based on morality would be awesome. But Sucker Punch will need to step away from Ghost to make it happen—and it’s unclear when that day will come.

Sekiro 2

Finally, we have another FromSoftware juggernaut that’s been left alone since its release. Unlike Bloodborne, Sekiro never even received any DLC. None. We all kinda applauded their restraint at the time, but after some years away, it’s hard not to wish the game had gotten an expansion or two. Out of all the Fromsoft games, Sekiro takes the cake for having the most awesome combat. Its very focused and specialized, leading to more intricate and precise controls. Sure, Sekiro didn’t have a lot of playstyles to choose from, but that focus is what made the limited style so polished. A sequel could expand your playstyle selection pretty significantly, and without sacrificing the original’s polish. The core combat system is already built—they’d just need to expand the build options a bit. Fans would love to see it, but as many know, Hidetaka Miyazaki isn’t fond of sequels. So while Sekiro 2 would be a dream come true, we shouldn’t expect it anytime soon.

The rating likely means that Resistance: Retribution will be making its way to the classic games list on the new PlayStation Plus Premium/Deluxe subscription tier, which allows players to play classic PlayStation, PS2, PSP, and in areas with cloud streaming, PS3 games.

Sony recently launched the new take on its subscription service earlier this week in select Asian markets. Currently, the new PS Plus subscriptions are available in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. Japan will see the service go live next week, followed by Europe and the Americas in the coming days.

PS Plus is now split into three tiers: PS Plus Essential, PS Plus Extra, and PS Plus Premium/Deluxe. PS Plus Essential is basically the service in its earlier form, where it allows multiplayer, and offers cloud saves and free monthly games. PS Plus Extra gives subscribers a catalogue of PS4 and PS5 games. PS Plus Premium allows players to play classic PlayStation, PS2, and PSP games. Markets with cloud streaming instead get PS Plus Deluxe, which allows subscribers to play PS3 games as well.

Sony Bend of Days Gone fame recently took to Twitter and announced that its PS1 classic Syphon Filter will feature all-new Trophies when it launches as a part of the revamped PS Plus. In addition to a silver Trophy by the name of “An Explosive Start”, Bend has also shared a screenshot of the Platinum Trophy titled, “Excellent work, Agent!”

It isn’t known whether Trophy support for classic games on PS Plus will be the standard or not, but last year, Sony filed a patent for devising a streamlined system to add Trophies to emulated versions of legacy games- read more on that through here.

https://twitter.com/BendStudio/status/1527424104025817088

It’s been fascinating to see how observers, many of whom were convinced something like this would never happen, have gradually adjusted their expectations and stances to allow for these developments. Originally, as mentioned, it was believed something like this would never happen; Detroit coming to PC was more because Sony had terminated its relationship with Quantic Dream, surely, and the IP no longer held any value to them. Death Stranding coming to PC was surely because Sony and Kojima enjoyed a special relationship. Horizon Zero Dawn coming to PC was surely because the Decimal Engine had already been ported to PC for Death Stranding, so why not? Days Gone coming to PC was probably because it had flopped, so why not make money out of it? Just a few months ago, a lot of PlayStation fans had formally adjusted these expectations to, well, Sony will probably port smaller to mid tier IP to PC, but flagship stuff, such as God of War, will never come to PC. As of right now, they are at the point where they think PS4 games may get ported to PC, but PS5 ones won’t; which, going by the aforementioned SteamDB and Nvidia leaks, means they are in for another round of expectations adjustment in the relatively short term future.

The point of this isn’t exactly to gloat, but to thoroughly establish that Sony games are coming to PC. That is a fact, a reality. Sony has slowly been working up to this – more and more major first party titles are coming to the platform, it has acquired a whole developer to help with the process, it has created a whole publishing label to help with the process, and yes, based on leaks, there’s a lot more coming in the near future. The question is no longer if a PlayStation first party title will come to PC – the question is, when?

The “when” question is significant, because of the counterpoint posed by PlayStation’s biggest competition in the console market, Xbox. You see, a few years ago, Xbox made a really bold commitment – every single Xbox Game Studios game would come to PC going forward. Day and date. At launch. Effectively, this would mean that Xbox would have no true exclusives, all its games would be shared at the very least with PC. It flew in the face of 30 years of understanding and history of the workings of the console market. It was believed that consoles sold primarily on the back of their software – and if there was no appealing software to buy them for, because you could get that appealing software elsewhere, then why bother spending money on a proprietary, bespoke closed system?

But Xbox head Phil Spencer had a different understanding of things. What he felt was that consoles and PCs were differentiated enough, and each offered enough distinct advantages, that each would have its own market appeal inherently. Meaning that by offering games across two different kinds of platforms, Spencer felt he wasn’t cutting his products’ market appeal – he was expanding it. The Xbox was no longer the product, it was one of the delivery methods for the product, which were the games themselves.

His gambit has paid off – Xbox Game Studios games are more successful now than ever (Sea of Thieves in particular is frequently setting records on Steam); meanwhile, Xbox hardware sales have not suffered. Yes, they aren’t matching PlayStation sales, but they weren’t matching PlayStation sales even prior to the PC day and date releases announcement. Xbox One was always trailing behind PS4 – Xbox games coming to PC didn’t change that pace, and Xbox One continued selling at more or less the same rate as before. Xbox Series X is being outsold by the PS5 – but, again, there seems to be no active impact to its sales pace caused by the fact that those games, that would otherwise be exclusive to Xbox, are available on PC as well. It’s still selling roughly on the same pace as Xbox Series X (and, judging by the fact that it routinely sells out, it is selling more than Microsoft is able to produce).

Would this apply to Sony too? Could they too get away with having their games release on PC day and date? Largely, I think the answer is yes. I think that, obviously, there will be some who would rather just play on PC – particularly since PC offers the best version of any game by definition, and because PC is now a one stop to play pretty much every game ever made in the industry (Nintendo being the singular holdout as of this point), so why not just consolidate your entire game playing to that one platform? But here’s the thing, Spencer was right too. Ultimately, PC and consoles are fundamentally different propositions, and for most people, the perceived and psychological convenience of consoles creates an inherent appeal that PCs do not match. Just as PC gamers love the flexibility and control that the platform offers them over their game playing experience, console players categorically love the convenience of having a platform where things just work with minimal friction. And of course, while PC has gotten far more convenient in the last decade, and consoles have added a lot more friction, in the end, they are still fundamentally different. Playing a game on consoles involves far fewer things to keep track of than playing a game on PC – this isn’t meant as a criticism, it’s meant as a recognition of the objective difference between the two platforms.

Meaning that for many, for most, in fact, console players? PC is a non-factor (just as for most PC players, consoles are a non-factor). The existence of Forza Horizon 5 on PC doesn’t mean anything to someone deciding to buy a console – for them, the choices are Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch, which means if they want Forza, Xbox is their only choice. It remains a de facto exclusive, for all purposes.

Meaning that the bulk of the console buying market – the people who buy FIFA and Assassin’s Creed and GTA and Mario Kart, those people, they aren’t going to be swayed by the PC. The existence of a PC version of a game is meaningless to them. Meaning effectively, having a PC version of your game loses you no exclusivity for the broader market (such as the broader market is concerned), and you expand your own addressable market by similarly offering your games to a new audience that, just like console players won’t ever be swayed by PC, will never be swayed by consoles. Your games end up selling a lot more, and your hardware sales remain largely unaffected.

And those increased software sales are essential – games cost a lot to make now, and those costs go up every time a new generation starts. They cost so much to make that it is simply not viable for most games to be profitable enough by selling purely to one audience. This is why every third party publisher eventually went multiplatform – because the profits gained by selling to every audience were the only way to keep up with scaling costs, they didn’t decide to double, triple, or quadruple the hardware they would have to build their games for for fun. Games are simply so expensive that even if they sell a lot on one system, they are limited by only being on that one system – they need a larger addressable audience. This isn’t just something I’m pulling out of thin air, by the way, former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden explicitly outlined rising development costs as a reason for concern as far as game development goes.

Those development costs rising are presumably also the reason that Sony’s biggest games have all committed to cross-gen releases at this point; a game like God of War Ragnarok or Horizon: Forbidden West simply costs too much to limit to just the audience of the presumably 12-20 million PS5 owners who exist in the market when those games come out. Even if every single one of those buys God of War or Horizon, they would only match sales for the PS4 games – PS4 games that, as a reminder, were cheaper to produce. And every single PS5 owner won’t buy God of War or Horizon, no matter how good they are. Sony’s games don’t have that kind of attach rate, and they won’t, because the bulk of people who buy a PlayStation buy it to play FIFA with friends. The easiest way to ensure that these upcoming, more expensive games end up actually standing a chance to be financially viable ventures, is to expose them to a broader audience – in this case, a broader audience within the PlayStation universe itself.

Now, in the interest of fairness, it is also important to note that Shawn Layden said he couldn’t see Sony ever doing day and date releases of its games on PC (though he qualified it with “never say never”). But the question I am answering here isn’t if Sony will do them, it’s should they. And the answer is, yes they should. The benefits are too great, particularly as they continue to push game development costs higher with needless generational bumps every few years; the losses? Minimal. Yes, some people will decide to simply buy their games on PC going forward, but a) those people are still buying their games, and b) the people who were only purchasing a PlayStation for exclusives were likely never too invested in the ecosystem in the first place. Sony makes most of its money from PlayStation via third party sales and sales from micro transactions, DLC, and subscriptions such as PS Plus. If you just own a PS4 to play God of War and The Last of Us, and use your PC for everything else, Sony isn’t making much money off of you to begin with – since you’re not spending money on micro transactions, DLC, third party games, and probably you are not spending money on PS Plus when you’re using your PC for multiplatform multiplayer games to begin with. So Sony doesn’t lose anything by you deciding not to buy their hardware (which is often sold at a loss to begin with, don’t forget) – particularly if you continue to buy their games on PC anyway.

So I think it would be beneficial for Sony to do this in the long run. I actually think they will eventually. Not right away, to will take some time – but PS5 development costs will continue to go up, and Sony’s games on PC have all been huge successes, and will presumably continue to be even more so as more and more high profile releases make the jump to the platform. And at some point, Sony will presumably come to the same conclusion Xbox did – that PC and console are differentiated audiences. There’s not as much overlap or potential for cross pollination there. The best thing to do is to serve both simultaneously – and rake in the money.

Everyone wins.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Hulst confirmed the project as he explained the importance of new IPs to PlayStation: “I want us to continue to embrace the legacy of PlayStation, pushing the boundaries of gaming, keep making games that matter. Games that, probably, wouldn’t have been made anywhere else,” Hulst said. “And you know, Bend Studio is working on a very exciting new IP that they’re very, very passionate about. They’re building on the deep open-world systems that they developed with Days Gone. So I’m really happy for Bend Studio.”

While it’s a shame that Sony Bend isn’t getting to make a sequel to Days Gone, which is a very good game, it’s good that they’re getting to put what they learned on the game to good use. We’ll just have to wait a while to see what the new IP they’re working on looks like.

“I want to emphasize that PlayStation will remain the best place to play our PlayStation Studios titles at launch,” Hulst said. “But we do value PC gamers, and we’ll continue to look at the right times to launch each game. Bend Studio just released the PC version of Days Gone on May 18. So that’s about two years after the PS4 release.”

That said, however, consoles are still the core of the PlayStation business. “I hope that a new set of fans can and will enjoy that title. And that’s the goal — we want to reach new gamers who haven’t yet experienced the great stories, characters, and worlds that we’ve built. Releasing games on PC will not come ever at the expense of building an exciting lineup of great console games.”

It’s a fair outlook, given that Sony is primarily a console manufacturer and publisher, but it’s nice to know that PC players will still be able to experience Sony’s games on PC, even if they have to wait a while to do it. Sony’s most recent PC release is Days Gone, and Sony Bend did an excellent job of porting it. Next in line is Uncharted 4.

Days Gone‘s PC port is better than Horizon‘s was at launch, though we didn’t have as many issues with the latter as many other people did. Still, that bit’s not really debatable. What’s also not debatable is that Horizon had more players, and therefore more sales, at release.

That’s not to say Days Gone hasn’t done well. The game, which launched a week ago, was the highest selling game on Steam the week it released according to SteamDB, topping Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. But it still has nothing on Horizon in terms of sheer numbers. Days Gone‘s highest concurrent player count during its release week was 27,450. That’s less than half of what Horizon’s 56,557 when the game launched.

It’s worth noting that this data only applies to Steam, and both Days Gone and Horizon also released on the Epic Games Store, so it’s not the whole story. Days Gone could be doing better (or worse) than we think. It’s still surprising given how much better Days Gone‘s port is than Horizon‘s was, which required several patches from Guerilla before it ran well for most people. Horizon‘s PS4 release was much better received than Days Gone‘s was, partially because Days Gone was very buggy at release, and while Days Gone ended up selling well, it apparently didn’t do well enough critically to justify a sequel, at least right now. That negative reception is probably still impacting the game’s sales. We’ll have to see how Days Gone‘s PC port does in the long run to be sure.

And then came Days Gone. The game released to middling reviews in 2019, but the PC version gives us a chance to reevaluate it, and based on my experience, I think folks will be more positive on the game this time around. If you’re not familiar with it, Days Gone is an open-world survival action title set in a post-apocalyptic Oregon that has been overrun by Freakers, the game’s term for zombies. Yes, Days Gone is a zombie game, but it’s one of those, a story about zombies that categorically refuses to use that word as though it somehow makes the game’s story less generic. It’s a terrible name, and Days Gone’s use of it should tell you a lot of you need to know about the game’s writing.

"Days Gone‘s story tries a lot of things – some work and some don’t, and that’s fine – but what bothered me most was the game’s dialogue, which is all over the place. Some of it is legitimately great, but just as much doesn’t land."

Players are dropped into the cut of Deacon St. John, a biker who lost his wife when the world ended, and still insists on wearing his Mongrels MC cut as though it and the patches on it mean anything anymore. A man’s got to have a code, you see. Deacon pals around with Boozer, his brother in arms from the good old days, doing jobs for the local survivor camps but never joining up with them. “Live free, don’t join” seems to be the pair’s model, and to their credit, they’ve made it work so far. Deacon isn’t the most original character, but I did enjoy him and while he (understandably) starts off as a bit of a jerk, he does get better as the game goes on. Praise also must be lavished on Sam Witwer, who gives an excellent performance.

If Deacon does have an issue, it’s his utter inability to shut up. He is constantly talking to himself, and I mean constantly. Some of these instances work fine – when you’re burning out several nests of Freakers, say, and an appropriately nervous Deacon is trying to psyche himself up or patting himself on the back for a job well done – but sometimes they can ruin the mood, too. Pick up an item? Deacon’s gonna tell you it’s useful. Do something cool? Deacon’s got a quip. Get lost? Deacon is here to tell you what you need to know. Listening to the crazy survival nut on the radio? Deacon’s gotta let him know how wrong he is, usually by yelling so loudly it echoes in the surrounding environment. Some of these are fine, and the lattermost is generally funny (and relatable, I hate those guys, too.) if a bit unrealistic – sound attracts Freakers, so you’d figure the last thing you’d ever want to do is yell – but the constant barrage of can sometimes ruin sequences that would be more somber, terrifying, or otherwise awe-inspiring if the player could just focus on absorbing them instead of on what Deacon is saying.

Days Gone’s storytelling is an equally mixed bag. It tries a lot of things – some work and some don’t, and that’s fine – but what bothered me most was the game’s dialogue, which is all over the place. Some of it is legitimately great, but just as much doesn’t land, largely because Days Gone tries to emulate how people actually talk, pauses and repetition and all. Sometimes this works, but it just as often makes for awkward transitions where you can tell the dialogue is trying to deliver exposition and winds up repeating the obvious or have gravitas and instead serves up cheese. The other major storytelling issue is the game’s cutscenes, which feature black screens between transitions. It’s awkward, given how well the game looks and animates and how good the acting is, though it wouldn’t be an issue if there just weren’t so many cutscenes. It’s entirely possible to go from a cutscene to a scripted sequence to another cutscene without having done much as a player, and it can be a bit frustrating when you just want to play the game.

" I’m not kidding when I say that I spent a lot of time admiring how gorgeous Days Gone is; it’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, and while the upgrades Sony Bend made aren’t transformative, they easily make this the best version of the game."

What Days Gone does do well, however, is the world, atmosphere, and gameplay, and this is where the PC’s improvements begin to come into play. Days Gone is a gorgeous game, and the PC version just makes it better. The major improvements here are based on the level of detail and draw distance, particularly in terms of foliage, which has a huge impact on selling the vastness and beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Static and dynamic objects are also more detailed, as are the game’s shadows.

There are no huge overhauls here – ray-tracing and DLSS AI upscaling are absent – but the upgrades here are appreciated, as is the support for unlocked framerates and ultrawide monitors. I’m not kidding when I say that I spent a lot of time admiring how gorgeous Days Gone is; it’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, and while the upgrades Sony Bend made aren’t transformative, they easily make this the best version of the game.

The game also offers mouse and keyboard support, and the team at Sony Bend has clearly put in a lot of work to make sure the game plays well on a keyboard and mouse. The controls are mapped nicely by default, but you can naturally remap things and change your sensitivities around if you like. Aiming in particular is a huge upgrade on a mouse and keyboard, and I found it much easier to nail difficult shots with on a mouse. There’s also gamepad support, which works just as well. No matter what you choose, Days Gone plays well, and quality of life improvements like a FOV slider made a big difference.

"None of this is particularly new, but Days Gone does it well. The gameplay is also surprisingly thoughtful, and always giving you choices."

This is good because Days Gone plays well. In fact, the gameplay loop is really the reason to play the game. Days Gone is a survival game, which means the player will spend most of their time scavenging items, ammo, weapons, and just about everything else as they fight the Freakers. Like most modern games, there are RPG elements, too, allowing players to upgrade Deacon’s bike, abilities, and everything else. None of this is particularly new, but Days Gone does it well. The gameplay is also surprisingly thoughtful, and always giving you choices. Sure, you could speed through an area on your bike, but the noise will attract Freakers. Sometimes it’s better to sneak through, especially if you’re low on ammo.

Thinking about hitting a quest on your way back to base? Better make sure you have the fuel to get you home, or you might end up having to walk your bike back to base, as I once did. Taking on a Freaker nest? You can hit them during the day or at night, both of which have benefits and downsides. One might offer weaker enemies, but the other will mean you fight less. Even the gameplay itself is tactical: it takes Deacon a moment to properly sight in on an enemy, meaning you’ll have to take your time if you want a headshot. Managing fuel, resources, health, and other items means encounters are always intense, whether you’re fighting Freakers or hostile humans, which will engage you in different ways. It doesn’t hurt that everything, from riding your motorcycle to firing a gun or swinging a bat at a Freaker, just feels and sounds really good.

It’s here that the PC delivers its final upgrade. Hordes are Days Gone’s biggest spectacle moment, as hundreds of zombies come at you as though they’re a single, moving object. They were impressive enough in the base game, but the PC version ups the count from 300 in any given horde to 500, and it’s nice to see Days Gone’s biggest and most unique mechanic get an upgrade.

"Days Gone may be flawed and a bit generic, but I did enjoy playing it, and getting to know Deacon and company, more than I thought I would, and the PC version of the game is easily at its best."

Days Gone largely runs well on PC, but I did encounter some technical issues. While the game ran at a rock-solid 1080p and 60 FPS on my RTX 2060 Super and i5 6600K most of the time, it did suffer some dips during heavy rainfall. In another area, it also had issues loading textures and geometry properly, resulting in untextured, strangely constructed areas where cars stuck out of the ground. Aside from those two instances, however, Days Gone ran very smoothly for me, and I rarely had issues.

Days Gone is an interesting game. It’s deeply flawed in some ways and excels in others. I don’t think it’s Sony’s best game, but I do think that the PC release allows it to be the game it probably should have been at release, a couple of technical issues aside. Days Gone may be flawed and a bit generic, but I did enjoy playing it, and getting to know Deacon and company, more than I thought I would, and the PC version of the game is easily at its best.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Launching in 2019, Days Gone was Sony Bend’s first new IP in quite a while. Although it ended up being their most successful game, reviews for the title were decidedly mixed at launch. This came down to a host of issues – the game’s lack of technical polish (always surprising for a Sony first party game), its relative lower quality compared to other PlayStation Studios games in the last decade or so, its rather generic and bland premise that it never does as much with, and despite some interesting systemic conceits, it playing it mostly by the book. All of these problems ended up making this the worst received of the “big” flagship Sony first party games. Although you could look at some of the smaller fare, such as Predator Hunting Grounds, to find games that had performed worse still, Days Gone was a premier game that was meant to stand side by side with titles such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost of Tsushima (both of which in turn marked the ascension of their respective developers from making games that were merely good to making ones that count among the best titles of their respective years).

In spite of these relatively muted reviews – our own review for the game awarded it a 7/10, which is substantially lower than the scores we awarded Uncharted 4, Horizon, Bloodborne, The Last of Us Part 2, God of War, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, and Death Stranding – the game did well. It likely sold millions, and it garnered a vocal and fiercely passionate fanbase. I would also be remiss to not mention the fact that multiple post-launch updates added a fair bit of polish and functionality to the game that did improve its quality and merits by at least a little. It’s still not a game that can stand toe to toe with the other major Sony games of the last decade, but it was at the very least a much better game than the low-70s scores that it got at launch would indicate, thanks to those subsequent fixes.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a sequel to Days Gone in these circumstances. Most importantly, of course, it had sold well, and commercial success is after all the primary concern when new games are greenlit. As mentioned, it had a fiercely passionate fan following as well. Finally, of course, Sony has a history of several of its now major franchises and studios having started from relatively humbler roots. A major Sony studio such as Guerilla Games started out with Killzone, a game panned upon launch. While Killzone saw relatively better received sequels for a while, eventually Guerrilla ended up putting out yet another poorly received title in the series with Shadow Fall. Nonetheless, credit to Sony for still believing in them, because their next game ended up being Horizon Zero Dawn, which would go on to not only become their best received and bestselling title yet, but also a significant hit for Sony, and a game that would inform the direction their subsequent first party efforts would take in several important ways.

Then there is a franchise like Uncharted – yes, even the infallible Naughty Dog had a relatively rough start with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Though received fairly well, it wasn’t exactly a game of the year contender (in fact, much like the PS3 itself, it was completely overshadowed by other major releases of its year, including Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 and Mass Effect). However, Sony, again, had the faith to stick with Naughty Dog, and their next game would be Uncharted 2, considered one of the best games ever made to this day. Uncharted 2‘s success would in turn lead to the recalibration of Naughty Dog’s development sensibilities, as well as the promotion of personnel, who would go on to deliver The Last of Us a few years later, which is to this day the most significant Sony first party game ever.

What I’m trying to say is that Sony has been known to give its developers a lot of leeway even if they don’t get it exactly right on the first go. They let those developers try again, and get a second shot at hitting it big. It was especially perplexing, when viewed in that context, that Sony has apparently chosen not to extend the same benefit of the doubt to Bend – especially when Sony’s current head of first party efforts, Herman Hulst, is himself a Guerilla Games alum, who rose to prominence following the incredible success of Horizon. Why is Days Gone not being given a chance when so many other Sony studios and franchises have?

The most important thing to remember here is, as always, context. The comparisons listed above, while fair, are also not 1:1 analogous. Giving Guerilla Games or Naughty Dog multiple chances in the PS3 or even early PS4 eras, when game development budgets were significantly lower, is a substantially different undertaking than giving Sony Bend another blank check in an era where games can cost tens of millions of dollars – if not hundreds – to develop, with years of time, money, and resources pooled into their production. Purely commercially speaking, for Sony, it made far more sense to let a developer have another shot after a relatively poorly received title back in the 2000s and early 2010s, when multiple games put together would probably not cost as much to make as a single one may now.

The other major factor to remember here, and this one is a far more intangible one and therefore harder to explain and harder to palate, is the broader brand alignment of PlayStation Studios that Sony wants, and how Days Gone may or may not fit into that vision. To put that in plain language, in the last few years, there has been a very clear attempt by Sony to develop a consistent, cohesive vision and fabric for its first party titles that extends across all its big hits. As much as people arguing on message boards online might want to convince you otherwise, this is not a bad thing at all. Brands spend millions of dollars and years to have an instantly recognizable and cohesive direction across their product line, which can be instantly associated with them by the average customer. Look at how hard Marvel has worked to have a template and aesthetic that is distinctly theirs, which moviewatchers can not only instantly, subconsciously identify with Marvel when watching their movies, but even extend to using as a general adjective for other movies and even TV shows and games. Describing TV shows or games or movies as “like a Marvel movie” has happened because Marvel has worked hard at establishing a very clearly delineated and recognizable aesthetic and direction for their products that can be summed up as “Marvel”. Their movies by definition have to have similarities, or “like a Marvel movie” would have no meaning as a statement – how would it, if every Marvel movie is different?

Sony has worked hard to have this kind of singular aesthetic and structure that can be recognized across all their games too. No, I am not giving any credence to the “Sony template” memes that people like to bandy about unironically, but there is a clear shared thread across flagship Sony games – story-focused single player third person action-adventure games. Back in the PS3 era, when Sony used to make a lot of different kinds of games with no clear commonality across them, there was no consistent vision or aesthetic tying them together – but today, that is clearly not the case. As I mentioned earlier, this is a good thing. It’s the kind of thing companies take years and obscene amounts of money to achieve, and Sony having achieved it is a very clear part of their overall goals. And Sony isn’t even the only company to have achieved this within the gaming industry – there is a very clear common aesthetic and design sensibility across all Nintendo games, for example, which is why “Nintendo game” can be used so effortlessly as a generic adjective.

But the point of me bringing this up isn’t just to say that Sony’s games have a consistent direction of being story-driven open world third person action-adventure games. Because if that was all it was, then Days Gone very clearly fits into quite literally every single one of those slots. No, there is another unspoken, but heavily implied, component to Sony first party games’ overall identity that Sony views as being integral – integral enough that it supercedes everything else, in fact. And that factor is “quality.”

See, Sony has actually indicated this several times – it views its flagship productions as big quality initiatives. These are games that not only do abundantly well with critics, but are also big winners come award season. This emphasis on quality helps Sony create an aura of prestige around their brand as a whole, contributing to the overall desirability of every new flagship Sony game simply for existing – because a new Sony game must be something to pay attention to, given how incredible every single one of their other titles has been. It also helps drive the desirability and narrative surrounding these games, creating system sellers out of them because the PlayStation ecosystem can lay claim to having a guaranteed stream of high quality award winning games that you simply cannot get anywhere else.

Quality is crucial to Sony’s vision. That’s what the whole software strategy is built on. That’s what the whole console strategy is built on, in fact. Because obviously, while Sony recognizes that the bulk of its console revenues and success comes from the average customer who buys a PlayStation to play Fortnite and FIFA, they also recognize that if Fortnite and FIFA is all their consoles had to offer, there wouldn’t be any reason whatsoever to pick PlayStation over competing propositions such as Xbox. Sony’s entire console business relies on them selling their platform as an attractive proposition for third party publishers to sell their software on as a de facto option, based on a massive, engaged install base. But that massive and engaged install base comes from Sony consistently putting out quality exclusives that compel people to buy into PlayStation, and keep engaging with the platform. That can only happen if those quality exclusives are, in fact, quality. If the average customer walks into the store and has an option between two identically specced out and priced consoles, both of which can play Fortnite and FIFA, but one which can also play a stream of award winning games that the other cannot, they are significantly likelier to pick the option with those award winning games.

So as far as Sony’s big flagship productions go, the games have to be quality now. Where back in the PS3 era, when Sony’s whole approach to first party development and production was far more scattershot, titles with more muted reception such as Resistance: Fall of Man or God of War: Ascension may have made sense, they do not in context of where Sony is going today. While their smaller games such as Destruction AllStars or Concrete Genie can get by with not doing as well – their big tentpole releases don’t get that same leeway. They have to be prestige products.

Days Gone was not a prestige game. It had a fan following, it sold well, but it wasn’t a contender in the awards season, and its reception is still the worst of any big Sony first party game since The Order: 1886. There is, of course, every chance that Sony Bend may have been able to improve upon it significantly with a sequel – but to Sony, the brand itself probably doesn’t hold as much value, and Sony Bend was better off doing something new. Especially because Sony Bend’s learnings as a developer and as artists aren’t only applicable to Days Gone. No matter what they do next, they will have learned from Days Gone and will be able to improve upon it significantly with that next game. Sony Bend still gets to put out a new IP that will probably be their Horizon or Ghost of Tsushima moment – because they will have learned from Days Gone, and the feedback it got.

All of this is to say that it’s unlikely Sony actually does a sequel to the game any time soon. Of course, I can’t speak in absolutes – I’m not privy to Sony’s inside workings, and even Sony themselves can probably not say with surety whether or not they will still be unwilling to greenlight a sequel to the game in, say, ten years’ time. But honestly, looking at the graveyard of very literally dozens of fan-favorite Sony games and franchises that have received no follow-ups or even acknowledgement from Sony in years (if not decades), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that if it doesn’t get a sequel now – which it’s all but confirmed at this point that it won’t – then it never will.

Who knows, though. A PC port of Days Gone is coming up in a few weeks, and for all we know, the game has a renaissance of reception there that makes Sony reassess its stance with respect to the game, and makes it reconsider giving it a sequel some day (or at least keeping the option open). Or maybe a huge Days Gone fan one day takes over Sony’s first party strategy, and they make sure a sequel is greenlit. The options are limitless, and it’s impossible to say with total certainty that there will never be a Days Gone sequel again. But based on the facts we have on hand, as well as a proper assessment of Sony’s priorities as a publisher and as a platform holder, the prospect of there being a Days Gone 2 any time soon – if ever – is fairly non-existent.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Sony has announced that Days Gone will release for PC on May 18th. Developed by Sony Bend Studio, it will retail for $49.99 on Steam and the Epic Games Store. A new trailer showcases the various new graphical options and features. Check it out below.

Along with support for 21:9 Ultrawide monitors, there are options for unlocked framerates, higher FOV, increased level of detail and improved foliage draw distances. Mouse and keyboard support is included along with support for first party (like DualShock) and third party (Xbox) controllers. There’s even a Super Resolution Photo Mode for capturing images with even greater detail. For more details on PC requirements, head here.

Days Gone launched in 2019 for the PS4 – you can read our official review here. It’s received numerous updates since then, from New Game Plus and Survival Mode to Challenges and bike skins. Unfortunately, despite being profitable, a sequel isn’t currently in development as per recent reports.