Days Gone Director Blames Negative Reviews On "Woke Reviewers"

The writer and director of Days Gone has claimed that the title didn't receive universal praise from critics for three reasons, one of which is due to "woke reviewers".

Responding to a fan on Twitter, John Garvin, the writer and director of 2019's Days Gone, said that there are three reasons why the open-world action-adventure game didn't receive universal praise from critics. Garvin claims the first issue is related to bugs and frame rate, stating, "it had tech issues like bugs, streaming and frame rate".

His second claim is that "it had reviewers who couldn’t be bothered to actually play the game", and finally, Garvin states that Days Gone "had woke reviewers who couldn’t handle a gruff white biker looking at his date’s ass".

Days Gone was initially released for the PlayStation 4 back in 2019, receiving mixed and average reviews from critics. A PC port was then released in 2021 for Steam and the Epic Games Store, receiving slightly more positive reviews than its original console version. Days Gone's Metacritic score for PlayStation 4 is a modest 71 and is even slightly higher for its PC port, which received a score of 76. With over 31,000 reviews by Steam users, Days Gone currently sits at a "very positive" ranking from PC players.

Of course, when it comes to PlayStation console exclusives, in terms of scores, Days Gone doesn't compete with the likes of Marvel's Spider-Man or God of War Ragnarok, which received Metacritic scores of 87 and 94, respectively.

Garvin's claims are clearly outlandish and received a lot of backlash from the community. Many pointed out that various other franchises, such as Red Dead Redemption, are based around a "gruff white" male protagonist and were universally praised by both critics and fans alike.