Days Gone II will not be seeing the light of day in what could essentially mean an end of the journey for the IP. It has been speculated for quite some time that a sequel to Days Gone will not be happening. It was confirmed only a few days ago by Jeff Ross, the director of the original game.
What may surprise a few fans is the fact that a sequel had indeed been planned by Bend Studio. Further information since then has come out regarding the fact that a prospective pitch was even prepared for Sony's approval.
The approval never came, although Sony has never gone on record to state the reason for the cancelation. It was Mr. Ross himself who informed the fans about the causes of the termination via his social media handle. He has now mentioned the plans that were part of the prospective pitch.
Plans for Days Gone II revealed by game director
Days Gone was never the perfect game, by Ross' own admissions. The game tried to be overambitious in their plans, which resulted in certain aspects remaining underdeveloped. A report earlier last year had stated how the lengthy development period and mixed critical reviews were some of the major factors in Sony's decision.
However, as mentioned earlier, a pitch for the sequel had been prepared, which sadly won't be seeing the light of the day. But in an interview with FTW, Ross revealed the visions he had for the now-binned sequel.
Days Gone II would have continued with Deacon St. John's story
The plans for the sequel were to carry on with the story of Deacon and Sarah and there would have been complexities which are common in real-life relationships. The objective was certainly to keep the focus on narrative-based gameplay that can be found in Days Gone. Ross clarified in the same direction about what the plans were for the sequel.
"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.”
A better, more vibrant world which would have had swimming
The vision for Days Gone II was to have a better world and a much bigger ecosystem which would have gone better with the overall setting. Ross wanted the new game to feel much more dynamic and livelier than the first game. The sequel would also have had swimming, which wasn't there in the first game due to engineering constraints.
Days Gone II would have improved based on player data
Ross added how he had gone through all the data that had been collected from the players about their in-game activity. It included a lot of different elements and even had data on what was the most frequent form of player deaths in the game.
“I was really looking forward to building on top of that,”
That was the idea for what is now the shelved sequel to Days Gone. The future for the entire IP looks and is uncertain and it now remains to be seen what the future is for Syphon Filters. Days Gone may have sold 8 million copies, but Sony has now put the curtains on Deacon and Sarah's story with no Days Gone II.
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