There's a string of free DLC content coming for Days Gone—and the first one dropped today: Survival Difficulty Mode. This one, according to the official PlayStation Blog, builds on top of the current hard mode. You want a more challenging Central Oregon experience? Well, you got one.
Enemies are harder. Fast travel is disabled. Enemy awareness indicators and outlines are removed from the HUD. The HUD is turned off, but you can temporarily display it by activating Survival Vision. Yikes. I don't care, I'm ready. If you like PlayStation Trophies, there are PlayStation Trophies for bragging rights for having beaten the game on Survival Difficulty Mode. I'm not too worried about that. But I'll definitely go for those new bike skins. I like anything that dresses up my hog.
Weekly challenges are coming later this month. Each week will feature a new combat, bike, or horde challenge. There will be unique rules and scoring modifiers attached to those weekly challenges. Doing well at those challenges earns you sewn-on patches that come with perks. Patch benefits stack and will carry back into the main game. That's pretty rad. Earning rank and credits from these weekly challenges can earn you credits to buy character skins, bike skins, and rings that hand over even more perks. (Rings don't carry back to the main game, though.) Skins-wise you'll be able to change into apocalypse Deacon, flashback Deacon, and—be still, my beating heart—shirtless Deacon. There are 10 other skins, including Boozer, Iron Mike, and even those yellow hazmat-suited NERO guys. I wonder if you're invincible wearing that hazmat suit like they're invincible in-game?
The first gameplay challenge, "Surrounded," drops in late June. You'll have to survive an infinite horde coming at you at Sherman's Camp. The clock will be ticking down, so there's no time to hide.
There will be 12 challenges over 12 weeks, once things get spun up.
Days Gone launched on PlayStation 4 only, like, a month-and-a-half ago. We gave it an 8 out of 10. The game is cool, your bike is cool, the guy, Deacon St. John, is cool. And, as intended, this kind of post-launch content should keep you from returning it to GameStop. GameStop is a sinking ship anyway. Let them keep their $5-per-game credit.
