Days Gone director gives more details on the rejected sequel

videogameschronicle.com:

The game director of Days Gone has shared more information on what its sequel could have been like.

Jeff Ross, who left Bend Studio in 2020 after some 20 years at the company, told USA Today that the sequel was going to be “the definitive version” of the Days Gone concept, one that would mean he “didn’t have to necessarily apologise for so much”.

According to Ross, the game would continue to follow the story of protagonist Deacon and his partner Sarah.

“Yeah, they’re back together, but maybe they’re not happy,” Ross explained. “Well, what can we do with that? Okay, we were married before the apocalypse, but what about the future?”

Ross also said the sequel was going to give the player more tools to play with, following Deacon’s acquisition of tech owned by NERO in the first game.

“We would have kept the heavy, strong narrative,” he said. “We would have kept the bike, obviously. And I think we would have expanded the tone a little bit in a more technical direction, kind of like, alright, now we have all this NERO tech – what can we do with it?

“The tone would have expanded one ring outward towards some of the new reality. I think this would have been a little bit more – I don’t want to say Avengers, but something where the player had resources, he had some sort of the remnants of whatever the government had.”

Other ideas planned for Days Gone 2 included the ability to swim and far fewer instant-fail stealth sections.

While Days Gone received some criticism, Ross felt that other established series had weaker first entries in hindsight and that, given a chance, Days Gone 2 could have been a big improvement over its predecessor.

“We have to be able to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run,” he explained. “I just see