Sony Bend’s post-apocalyptic open-world action adventure Days Gone gets the privilege of kicking off Sony’s 2019 exclusives schedule. Unfortunately, it has to follow a year that saw God of War and Spider-Man become two of the highest-rated (and best-selling) games of the year. Hype for the game has never been especially high, even with those impressively huge hordes of ‘infected’, and it has been cruelly dubbed ‘The Last of Us-Lite‘ in some quarters.

Now, this is mainly down to zombie fatigue and y’know…The Last of Us Part II is on the horizon as another PS4 exclusive too, but it’s also because there’s been little to suggest that Days Gone has any narrative meat on its open world bones.

Well, Sony Bend Director and Writer John Garvin spoke to Official PlayStation Magazine recently and revealed that the story will be a hugely important part of Days Gone, it’s just that the developer hasn’t talked about it yet.

Garvin states in the interview, ‘I’m the writer, and the director, and I’ve written all the games for SIE Bend, and they are all narrative, story-driven games. So this is a huge part of the game. We’re just not talking about it yet’.

Given that other recent PS4 exclusives have had fears foisted upon them regarding everything from story to combat to their choice of AI companion, this is nothing new. In the case of those games, it’s fair to say the fears have been fruitless, so surely now would be the time to trust the same of Sony Bend’s biggest game to date?

Garvin also went into detail about the game’s ecosystem and how it affects the ‘Infected’ and their habits.

‘In the grand scheme of zombies, yeah, we’re like, infected. So we’re like 28 Days Later zombies, instead of The Walking Dead zombies. What that allowed us to do was to create an ecosystem; you’re in an open world, with a day/night cycle, and you’ve got creatures that need to eat, they need to sleep, they need to drink… all of that is built into the daily cycles of the horde’.

Despite the general apathy/negativity surrounding Days Gone, there’s potential for something of a surprise. A familiar one, but a surprise all the same.

Days Gone swarms exclusively onto PS4 February 22, 2019.