Days Gone's "world is dynamic, living and reacts to Deacon"

Days Gone is one of Sony's big upcoming console exclusives for PS4, although the game was recently pushed back into 2019 when it'll land in late February.

With the game's launch edging ever-closer, we had the chance to catch up with Bend Studio's Eric Jensen during E3, and during our interview we were able to ask a few questions about the environments we'll be exploring next year, something close to Jensen's heart given how he's the lead open world designer for the project.

"As you're progressing through the game you're going to see more and more of [the freakers], and you're going to have a better chance of actually taking them on. They're part of our open world," Jensen told Gamereactor in LA.

The so-called freakers are actually "part of the ecosystem, just like everything else. And so you can be just driving around and stumble upon them and if you're not quite ready for it you're options are to try to take it on and risk losing, or you can just take off and come back later when you have more supplies and you've upgraded some of your weapons."

Jensen also explained how players will be able to impact the world around them, not only by interacting with NPCs but also by taking on enemies.

"There's different camp leaders that have different motivations, and there's different jobs and job types that you can get from camps. That's some of the more [...] static stuff," Jensen explained. "The rest of the world is dynamic and living and reacts to Deacon, so as you take out what we call 'infestations' - these are kind of hotspots of the freakers where they can nest - you'll see the environment and an area start to change and adapt. So where previously where it was infested with freakers, you might start to see humans showing up."

Days Gone is heading exclusively to PS4 on February 22 (which, as alluded to in the interview, is also the day that we'll see the releases of Anthem, Crackdown 3, and Metro Exodus).