You remember that 2016 E3 demo, right? The one where Deacon St. John is running across a sawmill roof while five hundred screaming "Freakers" pour out of every window like a literal tidal wave of gray flesh. It was terrifying. It looked impossible for a console that was already three years old at the time. Naturally, everyone started asking the same question: when can we actually play this?
The journey to the days gone ps4 release date was kind of a mess, honestly. It wasn't one of those smooth "announce and launch" cycles we see with Nintendo. Instead, it was a six-year marathon for Bend Studio, a team that had spent years making handheld games and suddenly found themselves trying to build the most ambitious open-world title in Sony’s portfolio.
The Long Road to April 26, 2019
The official days gone ps4 release date was April 26, 2019. But man, it took forever to get there. Sony originally had it pegged for a 2018 launch. Then they moved it to February 22, 2019. If you follow gaming news, you know February is usually where games go to die or get buried under massive blockbusters.
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Sony eventually realized that launching a new IP right next to Metro Exodus and Anthem was basically a suicide mission. They pushed it back one last time to April. They claimed it was for "polish," which is PR-speak for "this game still has bugs that make the motorcycles fly into space." Even with that extra time, the launch was... rocky.
I distinctly remember the Day One patch. It was massive. If you didn't have high-speed internet in 2019, you weren't playing Days Gone on its release date; you were watching a progress bar.
Why the delays actually mattered
Bend Studio wasn't just some massive corporate machine like Ubisoft. They were a relatively small team in Oregon that ballooned from about 45 people to over 120 during development. They were building a new engine to handle the "Horde" tech, which was basically a miracle on base PS4 hardware.
- Internal pressure: They were the first original IP from Bend since Syphon Filter in 1999.
- Hardware limits: Getting 500 individual AI entities to pathfind through a sawmill without melting the PS4's Jaguar CPU was a nightmare.
- Competition: Being a "zombie game" in the shadow of The Last of Us Part II meant the bar was set impossibly high.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Launch
There's this weird narrative that Days Gone was a failure because of its "mixed" reviews. Sure, the Metacritic score hovered in the low 70s, which is "flop" territory for Sony's elite standards. But the fans? They loved it.
The game actually sold incredibly well. By 2022, it had moved over 7 million units on PS4 alone. By the time it hit PC and got a "remastered" patch for the PS5, those numbers climbed past 9 million. That’s more than Ghost of Tsushima sold in its first couple of years.
So why do we keep hearing about it being a "disappointment"?
It basically comes down to the state of the game on the days gone ps4 release date. It was buggy. Reviewers ran into frame rate drops that turned the game into a slideshow, especially when riding the bike through rainy areas. First impressions are everything in this industry, and the first impression of Days Gone was a bit unpolished.
Performance: Base PS4 vs. PS4 Pro
If you played on a standard PS4 back in April 2019, you probably felt the struggle. The Pro version handled it better with checkerboard 4K, but the base console would occasionally hitch for 200-300 milliseconds while streaming assets. It wasn't unplayable, but compared to the buttery smoothness of God of War (2018), it felt a little dated.
The Sequel That Never Was
This is the part that still stings for most fans. Because the initial critical reception was "just okay," Sony higher-ups weren't exactly jumping for joy. Creative Director John Garvin and Director Jeff Ross have been pretty vocal about the friction.
Ross eventually revealed that they pitched Days Gone 2 with a focus on co-op play and a "shared world" where you could build up a camp with friends. Sony said no. They preferred to have Bend Studio work on a new IP—which we now know is a multiplayer-focused game that builds on the open-world systems they created for Deacon.
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Honestly, it’s a shame. The cliffhanger ending involving NERO and O'Brian is one of the coolest "secret" endings in gaming history. To this day, the petition for a sequel has over 200,000 signatures. People want more of this world, even if the critics didn't get it at first.
Actionable Steps for New Players in 2026
If you’re just now looking into the days gone ps4 release date because you want to play it for the first time, don't play it on a base PS4 if you can help it.
- Play it on PS5 or PC: The "PS5 Remastered" version (released in April 2025) and the 2021 PC port are the definitive ways to experience the game. You get 60 FPS and native 4K, which makes the Hordes feel much more visceral.
- Stick with it for 6 hours: The first few hours are slow. You’re weak, your bike is garbage, and you run out of gas every ten minutes. Once you get the first engine upgrade and a decent assault rifle, the game completely changes.
- Don't skip the NERO checkpoints: These are where you get permanent stat boosts. If you ignore these, you will get absolutely shredded by a Horde in the mid-game.
- Focus on the "Trust" levels: Every camp has its own currency and trust level. Don't spread your bounties too thin; pick one camp (like Copeland's or Tucker's) and max it out first to get the best gear.
The legacy of Days Gone isn't the score it got on launch day. It's the fact that years later, people are still talking about the feeling of being chased by a thousand Freakers through the Oregon wilderness. It was a technical marvel that just needed a little more time in the oven.