Sony's post-apocalyptic zombie thriller Days Gone landed last year on the PS4 and was meant to bring players some of the same terrors present in hit genre media like The Walking Dead and I Am Legend, but a bug discovered in the game last week instead brings a cult favorite from Marvel's stable of characters to mind: Johnny Blaze, a.k.a Ghost Rider.
As seen in the clip below, Days Gone protagonist Deacon St. John travels through the game's Oregonian landscape on his trusty chopper, generally going about his business without a care in the world despite his head being on fire. Twitter user @IM2WESTCOAST shared the quirky experience Saturday, and said that the bug occurred after punching a zombie that was on fire after getting hit with a Molotov in the game.
The post also draws attention to Days Gone's lack of an enhanced performance mode on the PlayStation 4 Pro. The regular version of the game already pushes the base PS4's hardware with extensive hordes of Freaker zombies and an expansive open world. It's possible that developer Sony Bend Studio opted to optimize the regular version over spending development time on the more limited PS4 Pro install base, but seeing a version of the game that takes advantage of the more powerful hardware would be nice, especially if the improvements work with any upcoming PlayStation consoles.
There's a unique appeal to watching what amounts to a Ghost Rider cameo in Days Gone that suggests Bend Studio would have an interesting feature to include in the game if it didn't have to worry about the possibility of copyright conflicts from Marvel. The developer hasn't been shy about allowing its game to cross over with other Sony properties, including a weapon from Bend's own classic shooter Syphon Filter and a motorcycle inspired by Death Stranding.
Ghost Rider's last cinematic appearance was in 2011, with Nicolas Cage hamming it up as Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The studio hasn't forgotten about him since, with another version named Robbie Reyes showing up in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fourth season, and this Ghost Rider almost got a spinoff show of his own before it was shelved last year.
Days Gone is out now, only on the PlayStation 4.
Source: @IM2WESTCOAST on Twitter
