Game director Jeff Ross has spoken about his ideas for the canceled sequel to Days Gone. One of them would have been the addition of a swimming mechanic to solve one of the key problems in the first game.
In a new interview on For The Win, Ross admits that the lack of swimming in Days Gone was "the worst", explaining that his omission was due to a technical limitation. To justify it in-game, a narrative reason was given as to why protagonist Deacon St. John doesn't swim.
“This character can swim, but refuses to, and then makes the decision to do it,” says Ross. "There's a scriptwriting principle behind it all. But from a gameplay standpoint, I hated it. I'm like, 'Okay, we'll figure it out later.' When we did the tour, we were probably in our senior year when they came back user tests and people were complaining about the water.”
In Days Gone, Deacon can only stay in the water for so long before drowning. Ross believed that surface swimming should have been added to give players a chance, especially since telemetry data revealed that drowning was the most common cause of death.
"We probably spend five days in meetings with ten people from different departments, and you're asking yourself questions like, 'What will that mean about that? What will that mean about that?' he explains.
"But we really have to try. So we spent more time in meetings discussing this and I finally said, 'Look, we need four hours of this guy's time.' She's been in these meetings for eight hours. Do?'"
The sequel that will never be
(*two*)
(Image credit: Bend Studio / Sony)If Ross had been able to make the sequel, he would have created what he calls the "definitive version" of Days Gone. In the interview, he talks about continuing the game's narrative and exploring the dynamic between Deacon and his wife Sarah. He also wanted to give allies and enemies more varied behaviors, like allowing bears to rummage through trash cans.
The lack of a sequel to Days Gone has been one of the biggest talking points surrounding the game, if not the biggest. News of Sony's rejection of the idea prompted fans to prepare a petition demanding that Sony give them another chance. As of this writing, more than 140,000 people have signed it, but Sony has yet to acknowledge it.
Ross recently made headlines for his comments on the sale of Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima, but Sony seemed to view the former as a flop while celebrating the latter.
Studio Sony Bend is currently working on a new project but, according to PlayStation boss Herman Hulst, it's a new IP address unrelated to Days Gone.