Days Gone Remastered is worth the $10, but launching 3 days after Oblivion Remastered gives it an existential crisis I can't get past

I'm getting to Days Gone Remastered a little late. Like the rest of the world, I've been hopelessly lost in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered – which also involves killing a bunch of hideous zombies, but that's about as far as the similarities go. But I've always been late to the party for Bend Studio's post-apocalyptic biker adventure, having bounced off the original release with a semi-earnest promise to eventually return.

Its fresh coat of paint proved enticing enough to keep that commitment, so between stints in Cyrodiil, I've been tearing through zombified Oregon. Here's the thing, though: this is exactly how I remember Days Gone, which is both good and bad. Six years is an awfully short gap between an original launch and remaster, which makes the endeavor feel like painting a white room white again – you can see the gloss and know it's fresh; but for all intents and purposes, not much has really changed.

Light it up

I hope that doesn't sound too cynical, because Days Gone Remastered's tweaks are neat for the $10 asking price. An overhauled lighting system plays wonderfully with Oregon's woodland sprawl, and there have been a few times where I've stumbled into prowling zombies because I've been admiring the way sunlight drizzles around tree trunks. Similarly to Forza Horizon 5's recent jump to PS5, Days Gone Remastered makes brilliant use of the console's DuelSense controller – throttle your bike, and you'll really feel it.

The parts of Days Gone that were always good still shine. I'm yet to play another game that conveys the same breathless panic of running from a zombie horde, the rural Oregon setting boasts the same fragile peace I adore in DayZ, and the piecemeal building of your own motorbike is incredibly satisfying.

Likewise, the bits I don't like are still here. Protagonist Deacon St. John has a crippling inability to shut up and let players come to their own conclusions about the world, offering commentary on every minute interaction and going so far as to chatter through a conversation we're meant to be eavesdropping on. The tone of all characters, not just Deacon, is lost somewhere between hammy intellectualism and rugged bro code. There are themes I find interesting – navigating grief in a world where there's nothing but grief, concepts of Americana fed through a meat grinder – but its subtler flavors are buried beneath an overwhelming cheesiness.

I can accept all of that, because Days Gone Remastered isn't really intended to win over new fans. The original game has steadily built up a fairly large fanbase over the years, and everyone I know that does like it universally says it gets far better further in – a point I've not broken through just yet, but plan to reach this time around.

Reflexively, it's easy to suggest that the remaster should have dug a little deeper, maybe attached a volume dial to Deacon's weathered denim jacket, but by doing so you wade from the shallows of objective improvements into far more subjective waters. And is that really the point of this remaster, to win over new fans? Was there a single player who couldn't crack Days Gone solely because of the graphics? No, to both of those questions. This is a subtle round of polish catering to existing fans, with the added possibility that it will make for a better first impression on PS5 newcomers.

A better question is whether that's really necessary? I'm always a little underwhelmed by PlayStation's rapid-fire remaster strategy, and don't think it's the end of the world if Days Gone looks six years old, or if The Last of Us Part 2 shows all four years of its age. I do like the extras that sometimes come bundled in – Days Gone's Horde Assault transforms the game into a bona fide survival shooter, and I don't have enough faith in the kindness of man to admit how much time I sank into The Last of Us Part 2's roguelike No Return mode.

All of that considered, my concerns around this forever pretty strategy are less value-based and more existential. If you like Days Gone and want to spend more time oohing and aahing over it, then yeah, $10 is a perfectly reasonable asking price. But whether it needed to be sold at all, or as a remaster – an umbrella term that becomes less cohesive with each passing year – is something I have more trouble pinning down.

Maybe, beneath it all, it's a vocabulary issue. Oblivion Remastered makes far more drastic changes and – to me – earns the remaster moniker. Some would suggest it even treads remake territory. Days Gone Remastered shares the same naming strategy, but in practice is more like Days Gone (Improved A Bit Edition). The room is still white, but boy oh boy – would you look at that sheen?

My first 3 hours in Oblivion Remastered were crammed with 2006 weirdness, making it the perfect reimagining of my favorite RPG