10 Video Game Review Scores Fans Lost Their MINDS Over

From one PlayStation exclusive to another now, albeit one which pinged in the entirely opposite direction, with players failing to appreciate why critics gave it such middling review scores.

Open world zombie actioner Days Gone was released on PS4 in 2019 and widely hyped as Sony's next big AAA franchise, only to launch to an unremarkable 71 Metascore - a far cry from the usually reliable 85+ scores afforded to Sony's first-party AAA output.

Critics praised the graphics, AI, and open world, but heavily criticised the generic, repetitive mission design, overlong core campaign, and abundance of bugs upon release.

Yet even four years on, players still regularly ask quite what critics were smoking when they reviewed the game, given that Days Gone has since developed a passionate legion of fans who see few gripes to speak of.

This is of course forgetting that Days Gone's launch was anything but stable, and the version of the game played by reviewers in 2019 was decidedly buggier and less-finessed than the more polished product many played months later - or in the case of the PC release, two years later.

The game's co-director John Garvin likely didn't help smooth over the discrepancy, though, when he blamed the mediocre reception on "woke reviewers" who "couldn't be bothered to actually play the game." Yikes.

To summarise, Days Gone's Metascore was entirely earned at the time of its release, and the fact that the game is in considerably better shape now is a testament to Bend Studio's commitment to the long haul.

Game reviews don't exist in a vacuum, and it's unreasonable to expect critics to re-review games once the developers have fixed the nagging issues. This is the price publishers pay for putting a game out before it's actually ready.

Sadly the wider outcome of the so-so reviews it that Sony rejected a pitch for a sequel, despite the game selling at least 6 million copies across PS4 and PC.