Days Gone Kicks Off First Weekly Challenge In New Standalone Mode

The latest free update for Days Gone introduces a new standalone Challenge Mode. Over the next 12 weeks, Bend Studio will unveil a new challenge every Friday. Players who complete these challenges can earn rankings, credits, and other rewards. 

Bend Studio detailed the first challenge in the 1.21 Patch Notes over on Reddit. In Surrounded, you'll use weapons, traps, and the environment to take on a never-ending horde of Freakers. The more Freakers you take out, the more time you'll run up on the clock, letting you maximize your score. 

Based on your performance, the game will reward you with a Bronze, Silver, or Gold ranking. This system determines the amount of credits you receive, which you can use to buy characters, custom accents, and rings. Rings provide potent gameplay perks you can use to increase your score when replaying challenges, though you can only equip two at a time. Completing each challenge also awards exclusive trophies and a special patch for Deacon's jacket which he'll permanently sport in both challenge and story mode. 

This is the second free content update Bend Studio released for Days Gone in June. Earlier this month, Survival Difficulty Mode made its debut. The mode added tougher enemies and a HUD option that removed the enemy awareness indicator and outlines. You can earn new bike skins and unique trophies by beating Survival difficulty.

The June 6 update offered the first glimpse of what's to come during the four-month Challenge Mode. "Doing well at challenges awards wearable patches that come with perks," said Days Gone game director Jeff Ross. "Patches provide small gameplay improvements like increased health, faster stamina recharging, decreased focus cost, greater melee weapon durability, better gun accuracy from the bike, and more. Patch benefits stack and even carry back into the main game."

Days Gone is available now for PlayStation 4.