Days Gone is an upcoming third-person survival shooter game that’s set to launch exclusively on PS4 on April 26th, 2019. Like clockwork, Sony Bend, the devs behind the game in question, set up a playable demo for games journalists to try out and somehow the race of the main character and killing Freaker “children” are highlighted as something obscene in the M-rated title.

Aviso: I should warn that the following information may be considered spoilers, so do proceed with caution if you plan on picking up Days Gone and going in blind.

For some odd reason, upcoming titles that are reviewed or previewed by major video game outlets seem to veer far from gameplay mechanics, sound effects, HUD options, graphics, and other things regarding the actual game and instead focus on social politics rather than the game’s fun-factor.

Review/preview pieces posted on major video game outlets that take the time to talk about race, gender and other things regarding politics have increased insofar that highlighted gameplay mechanics liked/hated by the writer are often glossed over in a generic way without any in-depth detail to boot why they loved or hated a scene, mechanic, and so on.

A perfect example of the aforesaid comes a recent IGN take on the game, which commenters on said site were quick to point out how absurd the piece is, with the following excerpt:

“Days Gone toma algunas decisiones interesantes que mantuvieron mi sesión de juego interesante, y las secciones de su historia que experimenté despertaron mi interés lo suficiente como para sentirme legítimamente frustrado por no poder seguir jugando al final de la demostración. Si bien admito que inicialmente puse los ojos en blanco ante otro Protagonista masculino blanco brusco™ en un mundo sombrío. – especialmente uno con un nombre tan brusco de Protagonista Masculino Blanco como Deacon St. John – Terminé invirtiendo mucho más de lo que esperaba inicialmente. Supongo que no debería sorprenderme: este es un título propio de Sony, y Bend tampoco es ajeno a escribir sobre personajes bien desarrollados y juegos con un fuerte enfoque narrativo”.

El sitio de publicación Kotaku isn’t far off either with Jason Schreier noting on the site’s podcast dubbed “Kotaku Splitscreen” something similar to the IGN piece:

“[…] Me intriga ver hacia dónde va la historia. Y las actuaciones son realmente buenas. Me gusta mucho el personaje principal a pesar de que es el típico motociclista blanco triple A brusco."

I bet you are thinking, “Well that’s it, right?” To that query, no! Fans interested in Days Gone will find the likely suspects always at the top of Google’s search engine, embedding yet another political instance that could potentially get the attention of higher authorities itching to scream “child exploitation.”

In addition to the above, Website GameRant published a piece titled, “Days Gone Basically Has Child Zombies And Some People Are Mad.” The piece highlights a tweet that website Polygon published about the third-person survival game on how killing Freakers (or Newts as they’re called in-game) “feels weird.” GameRant’s piece also mentions how it’s nothing new for M-rated zombie-like franchises to have players dispatching child-like undead things like in Dead Space 2, Dying Lighto Doom 3.

Dicho esto, el Polygon write-up in question reads:

“Jugando al juego de supervivencia Days Gone en un evento previo reciente, me llamó la atención una clase particular de enemigo llamado Newt. Estos enemigos parecidos a zombis alguna vez fueron niños humanos. Después de una pandemia global, se han convertido en enemigos peligrosos para el personaje del jugador. Matarlos me hizo sentir mareado. Aunque estas pequeñas criaturas son viles y aterradoras, me resultó difícil dejar de lado la idea de que habían sido niños inocentes.

 

Los tritones son más pequeños y débiles que otros enemigos del juego. Se reúnen en los tejados y otras zonas donde evidentemente se sienten seguros. Sólo atacarán si están seguros de que el jugador está debilitado y vulnerable. También se esconden en lugares inesperados y lanzan ataques sorpresa.

 

Cuando atacan, hay que matarlos, al igual que los otros enemigos más grandes, conocidos en el juego como Freakers. El jugador usa una variedad de armas, incluidas pistolas y garrotes”.

This notion of killing Newts was so disturbing to the Polygon writer that they had to ask Days Gone dev John Garvin about the whole thing to which the latter name offered the following response:

“It’s not about how old they are it’s about how the virus has to affect everybody. It affects everybody in horrible ways. The storyline of the Newts is not gratuitous. It’s connected to the story in a super-important way.”

Incluso Days Gone game director Jeff Ross chimed in to relay:

“They’re Newts at this point. They’re Freakers. They are animals. They don’t go on the offensive but […] as soon as you let down your guard and you’re not paying attention and you get close enough to them, they’re going to come out of nowhere. So they’re — they’re really sinister, kind of evil.”

It’s sad that developers have to set the record straight for these so-called “games journalist.” Additionally, a recent situation like this happened with Polygon labeling Amazon’s upcoming RPG New World a “Great White Fantasy.” But I guess it’s easier probing developers to change a game politically than it is to write up a detailed report describing what’s good, bad and what needs in improvement gameplay wise.

As noted above, if you are interested in Days Gone, the forthcoming third-person survival shooter is slated to launch late April for PS4.