Just recently, Days Gone has become the latest PlayStation exclusive to become available on PC. Developed by Bend Studio, Days Gone initially released exclusively to the PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro in 2019. The game has since received enhanced performance when playing through backwards compatibility on the PS5, had its Days Gone sequel scrapped, and is now playable outside of the PlayStation ecosystem on PC.
The zombie survival game follows biker Deacon St. John as he tries to survive in the Freaker-infested Pacific Northwest. The PS4 and PC versions of Days Gone are largely the same game. They each have the same amount of content, and no drastic changes to the structure or gameplay were made when released on PC. However, Days Gone on PC is the best version to play. Even when it initially released, Days Gone was pushing the limits of the PS4 hardware. One of the promotional features for Days Gone was encounters with large hordes of undead, and those sequences were especially taxing on the dated console's capabilities.
The PC release of Days Gone performs much better than both that on the base PS4, as well as the PS4 Pro, and even surpasses the backwards compatibility enhanced PS5 version in smaller details and frame rate. While the differences when playing Days Gone on PS5 and PC aren't glaringly obvious, the jump from the PS4 to PC is definitely noticeable.
Why Days Gone Is So Much Better On PC
The most immediately noticeable differences between running Days Gone on PC and PS4 are the resolution and frame rates. The base model PS4 is incapable of displaying 4K, and even the PS4 Pro only uses dynamic 4K for Days Gone. Provided the right hardware, the PC version will run in native 4K while consistently providing more than 60 frames per second. The PS4 struggles to maintain 30 fps, and frequently stutters while dropping multiple frames in the aforementioned horde sequences. So, the PC version of Days Gone is definitely better for frame rates and resolution.
While playing Days Gone on the PS5 (which still uses the PS4 Pro's dynamic 4K), the frame rate becomes almost a non-issue, but even Sony's latest console can't compete with the latest version of the game on PC. Because Days Gone runs in backwards compatibility, not even the PS5's SSD can eliminate some of the PS4's lengthy load times. Playing on the base model especially means having to sit through some long load screens, but the PC version is capable of loading in seconds. All these performance benchmarks, plus support for features like ultrawide resolutions and more advanced lighting effects makes the PC release of Days Gone a much better package than the original PS4 version.