LOS ANGELES — Over the course of two E3s, we’ve seen two slices of “Days Gone,” the upcoming open world zombie game. The first, very early, footage from E3 2016 showed off just how many zombies this game can throw on the screen at one time. This year’s look showed off some actual gameplay. Many of the game’s concepts look like they could form a fun and unique final product, but that product will need some time and polish first.

Sony’s E3 2017 demo of “Days Gone” showed off the variability of gameplay. At first glance, this looks like an open world version of “The Last of Us,” but gameplay shows the potential for more than that. The press conference gameplay demo showed the main character named Deacon using zombies (they’re called freakers here) to his advantage as he sneaks inside an enemy camp. Freakers look like they’re everywhere in this large and reactive world. Sound plays a huge factor in how to approach combat. As shown in the demo, if you blow a hole in a fence surrounding an enemy camp, they’re rush to that area and start taking care of your enemies for you.

In the second look I received of the same demo behind closed doors, the developers at Sony Computer Entertainment Bend Studios showed how you can approach the same mission in a completely different fashion. Rather than using freakers to his advantage, Deacon stealthily infiltrates the encampment and takes out enemies using close-quarters combat. He resorts to using a gun when things get hairy and the enemies are alerted to his presence. There were situations where planning for a battle could get intricate. Deacon can pick up and reposition traps and lure his enemies into them, or unchain captured freakers to create unrest in the camp.

"We wanted to showcase our strategic sandbox combat, which is a fancy way of saying you can play the game how you want to play," said a member of Bend Studios running the demo. "Depending on the dynamic systems, you basically have to stratagize how you want to play. For example, depending on the time of day, the wolves that you saw during the media showcase won't be there. So enemies won't be engaged with those wolves and Deacon can approach them differently."

The gameplay mechanics look sound and the freaker and enemy behavior looks like it all works. “Days Gone” just looks like it’s missing a level of polish that should be added before the game’s release. Some of the jankiness that can occur in open world games was prevalent. Some combat animations didn’t look like they connected. Fortunately, there's time to fix all of that. The dev team wouldn’t commit to a date, but it’s safe to assume that we won’t see it for PS4 in 2017.

“Days Gone” looks to try a few new ideas in the open-world genre. Deacon has a custom made chopper that is able to traverse the terrain in the apocalypse. Like any motorized vehicle, that chopper requires fuel. If that bike runs out of gas, Deacon is stuck and has to go the rest of the way on foot. When asked about this mechanic, Bend Studios said that the bike will remain wherever it’s left and can be retrieved once Deacon finds fuel. Enemy vehicles can also be found and used, but they won’t have the same benefits of Deacon’s own ride.

There’s also a day and night cycle and the world has its own weather systems. The original demo at the press conference showed the mission completed in the daylight, but the second playthrough was at night in the snow. The snow strengthens the freakers, but it’s unclear why that is.

There’s still a lot of time between now and “Days Gone’s” release, and there’s still a lot about the story we don’t know. It’s two years after the global epidemic that turned people into freakers, but we don’t know why that happened. We also don’t know if freakers can turn other people into freakers or if the characters we see are immune.

“Days Gone” is an exclusive to the PS4 and PS4 Pro and a release date has yet to be determined.

Max Parker writes as The Game Guy at www.communityvoices.post-gazette.com. Twitter: @PGHGameGuy.

First Published: June 21, 2017, 8:01 p.m.