Why is Days Gone a tired zombie premise in the minds of many when Resident Evil 2 is not?

[Blade Wolf]

Because Resident Evil 2 is a lot more creative than Days Gone.
You got mutated creatures, mutated plants, indestructible bio weapon (Mr.X) and an ever evolving organism (G), zombies are merely just a mob enemy type.
They are not the focus of RE2, yes technically it is a ''zombie game'' but it's far from just zombies, the game offers so much more in terms of enemy variety and design.

Days Gone only have running zombies, children zombies and screaming zombies to offer. It's lame and generic as shit.

EDIT:

Let's not forget how amazing the zombies are in RE2, they felt like actual walking corpses, and a lot of time they come back to life unexpectedly. It is the most perfect video game zombie I've seen in video games. Also RE2 does not shy away from the name zombie, they embrace the cliche and make it great.

The ''not-zombies'' in Days Gone are basically just running mad people, there's no gameplay depth, you shoot them like balloons and they drop dead instantly.
There's no grab, escape or suspense. They don't play dead or come back, they run towards you until they get shot and then that's it.

You can replace all Days Gone enemies with angry stray dogs and it would make no difference to the gameplay.

RE2's zombie design is intertwined with its gameplay loop and level design, each zombie's placement makes a huge impact on player's decision and management.
The game doesn't need 30 zombies chasing after you to create thrill and fear, even just 2 zombies in a small corridor can pose a tremendous challenge, especially when something is chasing after you.

 

[Edgar]

because one is survival horror called Resident evil 2 from Capcom and the other is open world action adventure with zombies called Days gone from Bend Studios

 

[Deleted member 41931]

That's like comparing Dragonheart and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Just like Lord of the Rings is medieval high fanatsy, Resident Evil is zombie games. Beyond that, Resident Evil 2's structure is much more unique in the current AAA gaming space compared to Days Gone which is heavily rooted in modern open world design. The main character litterally has Witcher sense. Not because it makes any sense for the universe, but because Wither 3 had it.

 

[Askherserenity]

What.

Resident Evil 2 is a remake of an already beloved game and franchise.

You really can't compare the two.

Compare it to State of Decay or any other zombie game to come out recently.

 

[Damn Silly]

Remakes/remasters -- particularly of beloved games -- are innately an easier sell because it's familiar. The gaming sphere in general already likes Resident Evil 2, so the remake already has a little leeway.

Plus, going off what I've seen of the game (the various E3s and the recent trailer that pops up on YouTube a lot), nothing about Days Gone is particularly inspiring. So I suppose marketing plays a big part too.

 

[justiceiro]

Days gone fate was decided when it was revealed. Since then, everyone decided that was just another zombie game. It doesn't help that the dev is so desperately trying to prove it isn't.

The thing is, you can only reveal your game once. And the reveal of resident evil 2 was the perfect reveal of the coming back of a beloved game.

 

[FakePlasticTree]

Resident Evil 2 isn't all just zombies, but anyway. I feel Capcom are the only ones who've managed to make zombies still feel terrorfying and interesting throughout the years. Days Gone aims for the Last of Us and Walking Dead appeal, where it isn't so much horror they want to portray as opposed to some Lord of the Flies esque stuff where the central theme is the conflicting human impulses toward civilization and social organisation and human morality is being tested in a world where normal rules no longer govern everything.

I liked the Last of Us but the formula has gotten tiring, as well as the many open world titles featuring zombies as little more than annoying pbstacles. Capcom has made zombies fun again I think.

 

[Gartooth]

I never played the original RE2, but the RE2 remake really appealed to me in part because of its' main characters. It is so refreshing to have actual heroic characters in a game like this.

Something like Claire helping Sherry seems completely foreign in most zombie media I've seen, because they always take this gritty or morally grey route which has gotten so tiring by now. If RE2 was The Walking Dead, then Claire would be a self-centered survivalist and not help Sherry, or be punished for trying to help her.

 

[Deleted member 18379]

Zombie fatigue isn't a thing and if you were to consume enough zombie media to actually be burnt out, you would have to be seeking it and love zombies to do so. So yeah. I prefer to ignore them. Zombies are fun. They aren't being shoved down anyone's throat and they certainly aren't in everything. Stop it.

 

[Aurc]

Resident Evil 2 has much that sets it apart enough from Days Gone to not be subjected to the same level of sheer scorn and derision. Although I find it tiresome and hypocritical when people hurl their bile at Days Gone for being a zombie game while likely being invested in their own tired old genres or IPs, I can see why people are attacking one, and not the other:

1.) RE2 is a remake of a beloved classic, and the RE series in general has garnered mountains of fondness and praise from people over the years. When we're talking about what many view as a tired old genre or subject, you can bypass the bulk of hate by being literally the innovator, the pioneer of how to use zombies to their greatest effect in a video game. Resident Evil got in on the ground floor over 20 years ago, and that counts for a lot.

2.) Capcom, as a developer, have more experience and a better track record than Sony Bend. They've had more time to refine their formula, to iterate upon it accordingly, to see what works and doesn't work within the RE franchise. They've had their hits and their misses, and they were able to springboard off the positive reception to RE7 straight into RE2, taking into account player feedback, and seeing how thirsty the market is for a high quality survival horror title. Bend are making their first open world zombie title, after years of primarily doing Syphon Filter and handheld games. People are understandably proceeding with caution, even if their hyperbolic hatred is often devoid of most stimulating commentary.

3.) Days Gone is a brand new IP. People will always be more wary of a new IP, that's just how it is. I remember years ago, seeing a wave of disappointment from people when Naughty Dog revealed that the game they were working on was "just another zombie game". This was during the peak of zombie fatigue, and not even Naughty Dog could get away with overwhelming praise for their big new game reveal. People saw that particular new thing as "beneath them" to work on, after years of ND working on Uncharted.

I'm quite looking forward to Days Gone, and even if people are being awfully dumb in the way they approach their criticism toward it sometimes, their concerns still do hold merit.

 

[Pingal Pratyush]

All I can say is that, you won't be disappointed.

 

[BassForever]

Believe those are the biggest reasons. Honestly when I look at Days Gone I'm more worried about the open world and post apocalyptic setting fatigue than the zombies themselves.

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The zombies certainly don't help. Imagine if days gone instead of the zombie swarm was set during an alien invasion, or was set in the modern planet of the apes universe. I think a fresh spin on the open world survival game would have gone a long way towards people being generally more excited.

 

[JINX]

Two different genres of game and ones a remake of a classic.

 

[Gleethor]

We already knew RE2 was good and days gone is an unknown quantity.

 

[Deleted member 8561]

Even just the zombies in both games are completely different.

In Days Gone you can seemingly get swarmed by a handful and just melee your way out of trouble. But the issue is they present their infected as basically "rage" zombies from 28 Days Later, yet the only thing they do in packs is... punch you? It doesn't fit, they sacrifice the premise they set up for gameplay, instead of either being true to the world they crafted or being unique in having any encounter with infected be a very much life and death situation.

In Resident Evil 2, on Hardcore, it can take at least half a magazine of a handgun to bring down a zombie. A single encounter is an issue if you don't plan correctly, and if you're in a hallway that has zombies (or other things) closing on both directions, there is actual tension because the moment you get grabbed by a zombie means you're about to lose 80% of your health.

 

[Old School Gamer]

I'm still getting it but Days Gone just makes me think of what if World World Z would be if Brad Pitt was a biker.

 

[NightShift]

The zombies in RE2 are impressive in how they fall apart and react in certain situations. It's also slightly refreshing that a single one can be a threat. From what I've seen, the zombies in Days Gone do nothing interesting like that.

 

[Cian]

Other than name recognition and how a remake of RE2 has been desired for about 17 years, the difference between the two games is significant in tone and mechanics.

There are lots of open world games, there are very few new survival horror games with tight level design, puzzles and threatening enemies.

 

[ParanoidRED]

Open word fatigue for me, i prefer tight paced games right now

Both RE2 and WWZ are both way more interesting to me

 

[Duxxy3]

There's more zombies in a single screenshot of Days Gone than there is in the entire Resident Evil 2 game.

 

[Pagoto93]

Because zombies as a shooting gallery is far more overdone than actual survival horror. No real comparison to be had here.

 

[Decarb]

Would be pretty silly to complain about zombies in a remake of an old school Resident Evil game.

 

[Sincerest]

Look at the protagonists of each. That should answer your question.

Edgelord biker with backwards baseball hat, vs. First day on the job goofball I'm the apocalypse.

One of these makes my eyes roll into the back of my skull.

 

[Meliodas]

Days gone fate was decided when it was revealed.

Click to shrink...

This.

 

[Strings]

It's because to make an RE, you need zombies (biological weapons, but whatever)... Duh. Fans want RE, and that's a part of it.

Days Gone doesn't have IP to lean on. When people look at it at the moment, they just see the zombies. And its hook - zombie hordes - isn't particularly sexy. It's just more zombies.

It'll be different when the game releases and there are characters and narrative to attach to it (if those are good).

 

[Foreign Jackass]

Tone. One is a very tired pseudo-realistic grimdark apocalypse like we've seen thousands of times in the past ten years. The other is a nostalgic remake of an over the top cheese-fest B-movie with a tone that isn't really as popular right now.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

Days Gone looks like a middle budget PS3 games from when the zombie trend led by Left 4 Dead and zombies mode in CoD. It reeks that the zombie thing is a trend chasing the buzz from The Walking Dead... Several years after the show's popularQUOTE]
PS3 game?

Are you joking?

Like L4D and CoD?

Again, are you joking?

Click to shrink...

 

[Astrogamer]

I don't understand the whole "zombies are overdone" narrative either. There is way too few zombie games in this generation for zombies to be over done. Atleast Days Gone seems to be doing something new and interesting.

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That implies zombies are a good gameplay concept when the horde mechanics are just bullet sponges separated in separate bodies. Open world works best in emergent gameplay scenarios and it isn't that emergent if you need at least a dozen to be somewhat effective. All the good zombie games rely on other mechanics to help make the zombie threatening like tight but well designed environments and boss zombies or make it fun with a strong variety of methods to deal with zombies. Not to say Days Gone won't be good but it hasn't shown anything too distinct

 

[BassForever]

Days gone fate was decided when it was revealed. Since then, everyone decided that was just another zombie game. It doesn't help that the dev is so desperately trying to prove it isn't.

The thing is, you can only reveal your game once. And the reveal of resident evil 2 was the perfect reveal of the coming back of a beloved game.

Click to shrink...

Days Gone also had a super bizarre reveal where the trailer was split into two halves at e3 2016 where half of it played mid way through the press conference and the other half played at the end. IIRC the rumor was RDR2 was supposed to be revealed but got pulled last minute due to a real life tragedy that had just happened. True or not it being the "final surprise" at that years e3 press conference probably further soured people on the game.

 

[tzare]

Prejudices.
Also interesting that people are now tired of zombies and open world games, but when those kind of games are the ones they want, it isn't an issue anymore: rdr2 recently, cyberpunk in the near future. Or RE2 of course. Any excuse is valid then: re2 zombies are better that days gone ones for whatever reason.

 

[Richietto]

I never got the whole "zombies? Again?" thing like zombies are boring when anything of any type can be boring and have been done a million times. I feel like if you are a fan of horror stuff you'll like zombies or whatever. The difference between this and RE2 is RE2 is a bonafide classic. I'm not particularly down for this game but if it scores well I'll play it.

 

[Jawmuncher]

I think a big thing to consider is that RE as a whole isn't really a "zombie" game or at least isn't a zombie game that fits with the current climate of the genre.

While Days Gone totally, fits so easily into what has been offered for the last few years. Which is probably just due to game dev time and the like. If Days Gone came out 2 years ago, I don't think there'd be much discussion around how it looks.

 

[Spazerbeam]

The zombies in both games are completely different from each other. 2 zombies in a small hallway in RE2 is a huge problem while in days gone the only time they become a threat is when they swarm.

 

[TheRuralJuror]

Prejudices.
Also interesting that people are now tired of zombies and open world games, but when those kind of games are the ones they want, it isn't an issue anymore: rdr2 recently, cyberpunk I'm the near future. Or RE2 of course. Any excuse is valid then: re2 zombies are better that days gone ones for whatever reason.

Click to shrink...

People have been bitching about zombie and open world games for years. Zombies in particular. Stuff like RDR and cyberpunk inspires confidence on the names of the developers alone.

That aside, I'm finding it doesn't take a game playing the same as another for people to write it off. Similar themes alone seem to turn folks off. I thought I was in crazy town when people kept saying they were fine with not getting an AC game in Japan because of stuff like Sekiro and other games nothing like AC, but people kept sharing similar opinions in larger numbers than expected, so it is what it is I guess.

 

[Kid Night]

Because Resident Evil started survival horror. Or at least was one of the first big names.

Days Gone is one of the dozens of survival horror games to come out since. It's very similar aestheticly and thematically to The Last of Us. They have both been shown side by side on the same stage for years now.

 

[Deleted member 17403]

Yeah, people in here are clearly biased. How can Resident Evil 2 feel fresh when it plays like numerous other games in not only it's franchise but genre as well? I believe people just want to see Days Gone fail and when it doesn't they'll say it's because it features staples of popular culture so it was impossible for that outcome to come about.

 

[SpokkX]

For me it's not so much zombies, it's the fact it's another open world game.

Click to shrink...

Yep this. It the open world part that I find bland.. the character design and "badass" style certainly does not help (re2 is charming)

 

[SliChillax]

For me it's not the problem with zombies per se, it just looks boring and the map looks bland

 

[butman]

Nostalgia

Click to shrink...

Can we stop cataloging that a game is only good because of the nostalgia it conveys?
RE2 and RE2 Remake are one of the best games in history easily.
We will see if Days Gone reaches at that level and in 20 years is remembered.

 

[Robin]

I never got the whole "zombies? Again?" thing like zombies are boring when anything of any type can be boring and have been done a million times. I feel like if you are a fan of horror stuff you'll like zombies or whatever. The difference between this and RE2 is RE2 is a bonafide classic. I'm not particularly down for this game but if it scores well I'll play it.

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Pretty much. Resident Evil 2 is currently sitting as the highest rated game of 2019 on Open Critic, and it's not undeserved. We don't know how Days Gone is going to turn out but it's obvious there is a genre fatigue of sorts clouding it's release, I just feel like summarizing it as "another zombie game" doesn't go far enough to describe why this game isn't resonating, but has become the shorthand for a series of other checkboxes this game is or isn't hitting.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

Resident evil 2 is a survival horror game. Different genre imo. You can put days gone next to the other dozens of zombie games like dead island, state of decay, dying light, dead rising and all those other games that are popular and that i'm not too familiar with like dayZ.

It is to seei f it'll be more fun than those games

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Why is Resident Evil considered "survival horror", but not Dead Island, State of Decay, or Dying Light where you're literally scavenging for items to survive?

 

[EvilBoris]

Resident Evil 2 is essentially 20 years old and I imagine many people are wanting to relive a shiny version of that game, it's made by a japanese company in their own interpretation of american horror. I think of it as more of being in the Horror genre than the Zombie genre.

As for Days gone.
American made Zombie movie/tv has been absolutely done to death, I don't think it's too hard to see why somebody might look at the genre, setting and characters and be unenthused about a white american man, driving a harley davidson and using a shotgun to shoot zombies.
It's ok to be unenthused about a game where I will likely run into groups of eastman backpack , wooly hat wearing surviors, also with guns.
At some point I might even try and seek refuge in a fortified small town, which is led by either a wise and kind elder or a suspicious community leader who won't let you in because of not having enough supplies.
Maybe there will be groups of bearded angry men who also roam around just killin' and looting just cos.

It's many of these tropes which I've also seen and played countless times already (including in a certain other Sony 1st party title) that leave me kind of cold.
That's not to say that I don't understand why other's might really be looking forward to it, but I feel like I've seen it all before and I'm waiting to be proved otherwise.

 

[AppleMIX]

RE2 is a survival horror game (rare in the AAA space) and Days Gone is open world game (very common).

 

[TaterTots]

Nostalgia

Click to shrink...

 

[Lunaray]

I suppose this could be considered a false equivalency of sorts, but it's one I'm interested in tugging at nevertheless. You don't have to look too hard to hear people pipping up about their lack of interest in Days Gone, how zombie games are played out and that it's a tired trope at this point. People have been harping on this since the games earliest trailers, and yet, Resident Evil 2 came and went without any of the same sentiment. I'm curious as to what it is exactly that causes this.

I myself am currently working through Resident Evil 2 and am absolutely in love with it, but when I hear of Days Gone I get the feeling that it might end up a solid game, but I just can't find the urgency to play it. Is it because Resident Evil 2 is just objectively better? Is it because Days Gone is open world? Is Days Gone too close to The Walking Dead and The Last of Us? I harbor these feelings myself but I don't know if I have a solid reason.

For the record, this thread's intention isn't to shit on Days Gone, so let's not get too vitriolic towards one game or the other please and thank you!

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Resident Evil is a very big part of why Days Gone's zombie premise is "tired".

 

[GTVision]

Because Days Gone zombies are Runner Hordes that seem to be All Style No Substance, while Resident Evil 2R has a much more modest distribution of zombies that are each a puzzle in and of themselves and have to often be solved in ways other than just shooting them a few times.

Click to shrink...

If the previews are anything to go by, most of what you said about RE2 can be applied to Days Gone as well. Bigger groups of zombies are like a puzzle and can't be defeated by "just shooting them a few times".

 

[Lunatious]

I think there's a bunch of factors. For starters, RE2 is obviously going to get a pass for being a remake of an older game - but I do think a Resident Evil 8 with zombies as the basic enemy would still get less flak, for a bunch of reasons:

- Zombies are only the basic enemy in RE games. Once you move onto things like Lickers and the many bosses in the series you have a whole bunch of standout monster designs that help RE stand out as more than just another zombie game.
- Days Gone is open world, which is a very "mainstream" genre nowadays compared to RE which usually has you in a singular locale with interconnected rooms and puzzles carefully placed around.
- Tone and story. Days Gone has that The Walking Dead or The Last of Us style "surviving in the post-apocalypse" story with brooding protagonists, fighting amongst survivors for supplies and the like. While it's own spin on it could be good, on paper it's just something we've heard before. Resident Evil has done a lot more with it's story, from evil pharmaceutical corporations to political scandals and Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style horror in RE7.
- Gameplay and reputation. Resident Evil's reputation speaks for itself and be it action or horror you know what you're getting into, as well as what things the series stands out for like it's particular inventory management, it's map layout, enemies and tight combat mechanics. Days Gone is an IP with lots to prove and it's defining factors right now seem to be the motorcycle and the World War Z-style hordes.

I think Days Gone is gonna be good, but marketing for the game hasn't been the best and with Sony already having a highly acclaimed zombie IP with a similar tone like The Last of Us it was always going to be a bit of a dark horse. We'll hear a more positive buzz once the game is in people's hands and it has a chance to show it's strengths.

 

[CloseTalker]

It's hard to hold a lack of innovation against a remake, because it's inherently doing something that's been done before.

Days Gone, it's always been tough to point out. There are a lot of little things that add up to make the zombie flavoring here rub me the wrong way. I think the main character looks like a total douche, like he walked off the set of The Walking Dead. He might end up being incredibly well-written and sympathetic, but I'll be blown away.

It also just makes me roll my eyes when creators kind of half acknowledge that zombies have been done to death, so they keep insisting that these zombies aren't zombies, they're something else (in this case, Freakers). Call them whatever you want, they're zombies. You don't just get to make a zombie game with every single trope that comes with them, and then pretend you're more creative because you're choosing to not call them zombies. At least just embrace that shit.

Then, with Days Gone specifically, they've been bringing out some truly old fashioned open-world tropes and touting them as innovative features. THings like "dynamic weather that changes how you get around the environment" or "enemy types that appear and behave differently depending on time of day". That's all stuff we've heard before, and in the grand scheme of things it rarely makes a huge impact in your moment to moment gameplay. Maybe Days Gone is the one to do it right, and make me truly pay attention to when and how I go after certain objectives, but until I play it for myself I'll assume it's PR window dressing like everything else.

Days Gone doesn't look like a bad game, it never really has. There's clearly money, passion, and time invested in it and it shows. But there's something about it that just looks...uninspired, I suppose is the right word. People keep bringing up Horizon for some reason, and how that didn't receive a lot of the same criticisms this is, and to me it's largely because Horizon really swung for the fences regarding it's setting. There were ideas and imagery that I straight up hadn't seen in a game before, and that goes a long way for me. Not every game needs to do that obviously, but if you're going to go for a setting as uninspired as "essentially just The Walking Dead", then your execution better be fucking phenomenal, and you better be making up for that lack of innovation in other areas. Otherwise, you're just another open world game. Which is fine, open world games are catnip to some people, but then you're going to be met with indifference to a lot of people too.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

That implies zombies are a good gameplay concept when the horde mechanics are just bullet sponges separated in separate bodies. Open world works best in emergent gameplay scenarios and it isn't that emergent if you need at least a dozen to be somewhat effective. All the good zombie games rely on other mechanics to help make the zombie threatening like tight but well designed environments and boss zombies or make it fun with a strong variety of methods to deal with zombies. Not to say Days Gone won't be good but it hasn't shown anything too distinct

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The zombies in Days Gone are living beings that you can use to your advantage. You can lead them into different enemy camp to clear it out or many solve different objectives of you want.

The fact they sleep, take shelter, eat (even each other is something I haven't seen in any zombie game before. You also have the fact that different ranks can attack each other creating more dynamic encounters.

This to me shows that they have attempted to make them different compared to the mindless zombies most games have. The main selling point of the game is surviving so using the zombies or different animals to accomplish this is a viable strategy instead of them being there to be killed. It is like Macguyver in a world that went to hell.

 

[Canas Renvall]

Probably because RE2 is a remake of a charming, cheesy game of days past with a lot weird stuff in it

I haven't really played the remake much, so I dunno how much of that stuff survived though (tofu mode?).

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Not only is Tofu Survivor in, they expanded it to five different tofus, lol.

The difference, OP, is that RE2 showed it was doing something unique with zombies with their incredible fortitude against bullets and their horrendously good gore system. It makes each individual zombie feel threatening. Days Gone just looks like a horde, which has been done in Left 4 Dead and World War Z, off the top of my head.