Days Gone Remastered was officially announced at Sony’s recent State of Play, offering an updated version of Bend Studio’s open-world zombie game featuring biker Deacon St. John. Despite it being a relatively new game, the news has gone down well, largely thanks to Days Gone’s reputation increasing over the years since release.
As part of the announcement, it was revealed that players who already own the game will be able to pay $10 to get the new, upgraded version (which includes updated graphics and new content) when it launches on April 25. If you don’t already own the game then you’ll have to pay the regular full price of $49.99, and the original version of the game will presumably be removed from sale much like how Sony did when it launched Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered earlier this year.
But what if you own the game without ever having actually paid for it? Sony has also confirmed some bad news: if you own Days Gone via PS Plus or got the game for free, you are not eligible for the $10 upgrade scheme, again exactly like what happened with Horizon Zero Dawn.
“PS4 game redemptions via PlayStation Plus are not eligible for upgrade,” states the official image from Sony.
In this instance, Days Gone was previously given out as part of the PS Plus Collection, a bundle of games made available to claim by PS Plus subscribers. That bundle was shut down last year, sadly. Days Gone was also given out as a “free” monthly Essential game back in April of 2021. If you got the game via those methods, you will currently not be able to pay $10 to upgrade.
There is a way around this, depending on your circumstances – if you own a PS5 with a disc drive you could snag a physical copy on Ebay for far cheaper (around $20, probably) and then pay for the upgrade. That’d save you about $20.
Unsurprisingly, the news has been divisive. Both sides actually make some valid points, though. On the one hand, the first camp argues that it makes sense Sony wouldn’t want to offer upgrades to people who got the game for free, as that doesn’t make a lot of business sense. And they also point out that we already knew this was likely going to be how Days Gone was handled, since this is exactly how Sony did the $10 upgrade idea in the past.
The other camp argues that Sony is leaving a lot of $10 upgrades on the table, as plenty of people who got the game for free would probably be happy to hand over such a small amount. However, those same people likely aren’t going to be willing to buy a game they already own for $49.99 and will instead just ignore the remaster entirely.
Personally, I think both sides have a strong case here. I did own a copy of Days Gone on disc back in the day but sold it. I now own a digital copy I was given via the defunct PS Plus Collection, which means I’m not eligible for upgrade. That’s a shame because I’ve been meaning to go back and play Days Gone again and the remaster announcement actually got me excited as it was the perfect opportunity to play it again in an even better form. But I don’t see myself rebuying the game for $49.99 when I have a perfectly good copy in my library, bearing in mind that Bend Studio released a very solid PS5 patch for the game.
Presumably, Sony has already crunched all the numbers from Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and are perfectly fine with the upgrade scheme as it is, though.
What do you think? Is Sony leaving money on the table, or is it perfectly fair of them to only offer upgrades to people who actually bought Days Gone?
