Economy Systems and Balancing

The world of Days Gone is huge, requiring a motorcycle at nearly all times to navigate effectively. Much of that land, however, is taken by wayward groups of humans and the roaming freakers. In fact, there are only five settlements of people that approach being friendly with our main character and I had a tremendous amount of input in how they interacted with the player. Before I took over progression, much of the economy was thrown at the wall just to see what stuck. In the end, I narrowed interactions down to three key components: Bounties, Merchants and Trust.

Bounties
While a simple concept, turning in freaker ears and the like actually form the backbone of Days Gone’s economy and, indeed, progression as a whole. I made the decision very early that these ears specifically were going to be the gold-standard for so many other facets in this game. Item pricing is an obvious example, but it even extends as far as rewards for Story Missions as well. Whenever anyone came to me with questions on how to properly evaluate an item or reward I always asked one question: How many freakers is that worth?

By killing freakers and collecting their ears, you are spending time and ammo to receive an amount of potential credits and trust; so I framed the economy in that manner. A bandage, a gun, a bike part; how many freakers were you willing to kill to get them?

Merchants
Perhaps the most obvious element of the economy are the merchants. These were the bread and butter of camp interactions and the reason players will feel that drive to turn in bounties and do jobs.

While I worked alongside combat designers and those working on the bikes for things like availability of weapons and bike parts across the game world, every other purchasable upgrade as well as the pricing and trust gating of everything was my responsibility.

Suffice it to say to anyone who has not maintained an economy within a game, it can be a daunting task requiring meticulous attention from beta all the way through to release. While my departure prior to release means I cannot take credit for where the game’s economy ultimately ended up, I can confidently say that the game’s inclusion of one at all is due to my having spent those years tending to it with passion, care, and spreadsheets.

Trust
The addition of trust to the camps of Days Gone seems like a no-brainer in retrospect, given how intertwined they are with the main story. However, the reality was that the gradual friendliness was just a part of said story with no reputation system whatsoever.

This idea was developed between myself and a designer dealing with bike parts, wanting a method of distributing them. My suggestion for the player to gain trust; with weapons, bike parts, and items gated behind various tiers of trust; was almost immediately adopted and I was then tasked with making sure the players got enough of it.

Between missions, camp jobs, bounty rewards and ambient events, I decided how much trust, and experience, the player gained.