Days Gone 2 would have solved the water problem from the first game

Game director Jeff Ross has opened up about his ideas for the canceled Days Gone sequel. One of them would have been the addition of a swimming mechanic to solve one of the key issues in the first game.

In a new interview on For victory, Ross admits that the lack of swimming in Days Gone was “the worst,” explaining that his omission was due to technical compulsion. To justify it in the game, a narrative reason was given as to why protagonist Deacon St. John doesn’t swim.

“This character can swim but refuses to do so and later makes the decision to do so,” says Ross. “There’s a scriptwriting principle behind it all. But from a gameplay standpoint, I hated it. I’m like, ‘Okay, we’ll figure that out later.’ By the time we took the tour, we were probably in the last year when user testing was coming back, and people were complaining about the water. ”

In Days Gone, Deacon can only stay in the water for that long before he drowns. Ross believed surface swimming should have been added to give players a chance, especially since telemetry data revealed drowning was the most common cause of death.

“We’ve probably spent five days in meetings with ten people from different departments, and you’re asking questions like, what’s that going to mean for this? What does this mean for this? ” he explains.

“But we really have to try it. So we spent more time in the meetings discussing this and I finally said, ‘Look, we need four hours of this guy’s time. He’s been in these meetings for eight hours. To do?'”

The sequel that will never be

If Ross could have made the sequel, he would have created what he calls the “definitive version” of Days Gone. In the interview, he talks about continuing the game’s narrative and exploring the dynamic between Deacon and his wife Sarah. He also wanted to give allies and enemies more varied behaviors, such as allowing bears to be able to rummage through trash cans.

The lack of a Days Gone sequel has been one of, if not the biggest talking point surrounding the game. Sony’s word rejecting the idea prompted fans to come together a petition demanding that Sony give it another chance. At the time of writing, over 140,000 people have signed it, but Sony hasn’t even recognized it yet.

Ross recently made headlines for his comments on the sale of Days Gone as well as Ghost of Tsushima, but Sony seemed to view the former as a failure while celebrating the latter.

Studio Sony Bend is currently working on a new project but, according to PlayStation boss Herman Hulst, this is a new IP address unrelated to Days Gone.