Days Gone's Bend Studio has revealed that PlayStation 5 players can pick up right where they left the game (as many did before its end) on PS4 thanks to the next-gen upgrade's cross-gen saves, and it will also get a major graphics and frame rate overhaul. Although not necessarily a flawless title, Days Gone nonetheless managed to be fairly successful in sales upon its release.
Days Gone released at the end of April back in 2019, and it quickly became the best-selling title on PlayStation Store for the month. It was somewhat expected, though, as Bend Studio’s title was an anticipated PlayStation exclusive with dynamic and huge hordes of horrifying, fast zombies. The game was delayed a few times prior to the eventual launch - and the early reviews weren’t quite promising - but the general interest in zombie setting helped Days Gone to exceed expectations, despite it being one of players' more forgettable PlayStation first-party exclusives of the current generation.
According to the Bend Studio official Twitter account, Days Gone players can expect a reasonable upgrade in visual quality on PS5 regardless of whether they are newcomers or continuing with NG+ after beating the game. Frame rate counts will be increased up to 60fps with dynamic 4K resolution enabled, and it will support save transfers from PS4 to PS5. This means that players can continue playing the open-world zombie adventure on the next-gen console from the very moment where they left off, while also enjoying significantly improved visuals. (It is worth noting that dynamic 4K does not imply that the picture will be rendered at 2160p at all times; instead, the dynamic resolution will use upscaling methods to keep steady frame counts while enabling native 4K resolution when it does not negatively affect performance.)
While quite enjoyable and neatly executed gameplay-wise, Days Gone struggled at offering an engaging story. According to Screen Rant’s review of the game, it fell victim to common genre clichés and broken character development. Fortunately, the remaining aspects of Days Gone, such as lush environments of the beautiful open world, dynamic hordes of bloodthirsty freakers, and shooting mechanics along with riding and upgrading trusty bike, were exciting enough to distract from the poorly delivered narrative.
Although for quite a while, it’s been known that PS5 is capable of launching the absolute majority of PS4 titles without any additional kerfuffle on the developers’ end, games from the previous-gen do require a bit of additional work in order to enable all the demanded features. As such, an upgraded version of Days Gone for PS5 supporting save transfers is definitely a welcome initiative, which might revitalize interest in the open-world title for those who have already completed it on PS4.
Source: Bend Studio