Days Gone: Beginner Tips & Tricks

Days Gone is finally releasing on PS4 this week, and we’ve got a few handy beginner tips to help you get started.

Upgrade that Motorbike

The motorbike is your primary mode of transportation in Days Gone, and it’s also an essential tool if you’re planning on using the fast travel function a lot.

However, when you’re just getting started, the bike itself is pretty weak with low max health and a small fuel tank. Copeland’s camp is the first settlement you’ll reach in the game, and there’s a bike vendor there that sells valuable upgrades to greatly improve the bike’s performance.

I highly recommend doing all the early camp missions for Copeland, just so you can increase that camp’s Trust level quickly, and earn enough Credits for those upgrades.

Upgrade the motorbike, and it’ll have better speed, be able to travel over longer distances, and take more of a beating before you have to repair it again. As you’re roaming about Days Gone’s open world, remember to look out for red fuel cans as well to top up the tank.

Get Focused Shot ASAP

This is probably the best and most valuable skill you can get in Days Gone, so I strongly recommend that you get it as soon as you earn your first skill point.

With Focused Shot, you can hit the R3 button while aiming to slow down time, giving you a chance to line up a headshot for an instant kill. This is an insanely good skill that can let you win most firefights without taking too much damage.

With how iffy the stealth can be in Days Gone, Focused Shot gives you an incredible advantage in all-out firefights, and will make it a breeze for you to get past most encounters.

If you take the time to clear out NERO checkpoints, you’ll also be able to upgrade your Focus meter. As you level up, there are a couple other skills that will improve Focused Shot, such as the ability to reduce the cooldown timer for it, or pausing Focus entirely whenever you reload a weapon.

Build Trust With the Right Camps

The different camps in Days Gone have different specialties. Your Trust levels and Credits earned are camp-specific as well, so you’ll want to make sure that you’re investing in the ones that have value to you.

For instance, Copeland’s camp offers good bike upgrades, while Tucker’s camp has better weapons for sale. And a little later on, you’ll find Iron Mike’s camp, which dabbles in a bit of both.

Trust is easily built up in Days Gone by doing the optional camp missions, or by turning in bounties, plants, and meat to them. Camp missions are still the most efficient way of increasing Trust, though, so if you want to level a camp up quickly, make sure you do their missions. With more Trust, the camp vendors will start selling better upgrades and weapons.

Speaking of weapons, it’s definitely recommended that you start looking into some higher end gear once you have the opportunity to do so. The crossbow is a decent option, but I’ve found that combat encounters go by much more quickly and efficiently if you go in guns blazing.

More often than not, you’ll have to engage in big firefights anyway, so you’ll definitely need good weapons to be able to hold your own. Once you get Tucker’s camp up to Trust level 2, you’ll have access to a decent assault rifle that will let you take out most enemies very quickly.

Don’t Mess With the Hordes

Very early on in the game, you’ll find a NERO checkpoint in the north that’s also extremely close to a Horde.

Hordes are large gatherings of Freakers that act as a hive mind. They move together, and they’ll sprint after you relentlessly. Do not, I repeat, do not engage this Horde for any reason whatsoever.

Hordes should really only be tackled when you’ve reached the final act of the game, which is when you’ll start gaining access to much better and more powerful explosives and weapons.

Even then, you won’t want to mess around with them without a proper game plan in place. Take your time to study the environment the Horde is in, and figure out a route to kite them around, blowing them up with explosive barrels and other traps and bombs you have at your disposal.

Get Used to the Melee Combat

The melee combat in Days Gone seems pretty basic in terms of controls, but there are still a couple of things you need to keep in mind.

For instance, tapping R1 will allow you to perform a dodge roll, which actually gives you a few i-frames to work with. It’s definitely possible to fight a small group of Freakers with just melee combat, as you can whack away at an enemy, then roll out whenever one of them’s about to land an attack on you.

When melee-ing a Freaker, be sure to watch their movements. The second they manage to dodge one of your melee attacks, make sure to roll away immediately as they’ll follow up with an attack that you can’t interrupt. Once you’ve dodged that, go back in and continue your combo.

Deacon’s knife is handy, but has weak damage, and you can strengthen it by spending skill points. When you’re in the open world, look for melee weapons that you can pick up. The fire axe and machete are excellent choices.

And those are all of the Days Gone beginner tips we have for you at the moment. Be sure to check our Days Gone guide wiki for more tips and information on the game.