Days Gone's Infamous Wedding Scene Is Less Weird in Context

Days Gone fully releases for all you fine folks tomorrow, but the reviews and impressions for it went online earlier this morning. In my review I found a game that's fine, but spends too much of its time hiding its best parts. But what has put the internet in a tizzy is one specific line of dialogue.

In one scene, Deacon is returning to the burned out, ruined church where he and his wife Sarah were married. Then it jumps into a flashback as the two exchange their vows in front of a priest. Sarah jokingly notes that no one came to the wedding, because they pissed off both of their relative worlds.

The flashback is interspersed with combat, as Deacon kills squatters for daring to be in "his church." Once we return to the wedding scene in flashback, Sarah caps off Deacon's heartfelt vows by returning his distinctive ring to him and stating, "Here, you can have this one back, but only if you promise to ride me as much as you ride your bike." Back in his post-apocalyptic reality, Deacon then decides to leave the past behind and burns the church he just defended. Interestingly, parts of the scene were put online by Sony itself.

The story of Days Gone is partially about Deacon and Sarah's ongoing romance, despite him being an "outlaw biker" and her being a college-educated scientist working for the government. Neither of their worlds really intersect. Deacon is constantly joking about being dumber than he actually is, and Sarah spends most of the courtship learning the ropes of rural Oregon.

There's a later callback to the line, in an earlier flashback when Deacon first proposes to Sarah. One of her two conditions to agreeing to marry him are that "we don't have one of those biker weddings where you say that you're going to ride me as much as your bike." Deacon agrees, noting that he "couldn't promise that anyway." The second condition is that he never leaves her, which of course ties back to the beginning of Days Gone, where he puts her on a chopper to safety, but stays behind to help his friend Boozer.

Given Deacon's background, Days Gone shares a lot of ideas with Sons of Anarchy. The "biker wedding" could be a callback to the marriage vows on that show, where biker Opie promises, after some needling by his biker friends, to "treat you as good as my leather and ride you as much as my Harley." I'm loathe to call that a straight reference to the show, because the scene in Days Gone might just be an accurate representation of biker culture.

Regardless, the line is a bit of lampshading about their life on Sarah's part. Not necessarily meant to be entirely serious or straightforward. Context is everything, and now you know the context.

Days Gone is available tomorrow April 26 on PlayStation 4. You can check out our review, which finds a solid game whose highlights are undercut by a great deal of tedium. If you already have a copy, you might also want to check out our guides hub, which includes basic tips like bike maintenance, increasing your Trust level at the various camps, and where to find all the NERO checkpoints.