Days Gone Director Upset Astro Bot Has Reduced His Character to a ‘Cartoon Schill’

Of any criticism hurled at Astro Bot, I don’t think anyone expected a game dev to get upset by one of their characters included in the game as a celebratory cameo referencing PlayStation’s history. But here we are. The creative director for Days Gone, John Garvin, is upset that the game’s lead character, Deacon (Deek) St. John, can be found in Astro Bot.

Taking to X, Garvin boldly tweeted, “Kinda sad Deek has been reduced to promoting other games.” The remark served as a snide rebuke against his former place of work, Bend Studio, which first posted a celebratory tweet congratulating the launch of Astro Bot and included a painted image of Astro’s Deacon bot sitting on the beach.

As one might expect, Garvin’s sentiment hasn’t sat well with most folks, the majority of whom have chimed in to point out that Astro Bot’s use of the Days Gone character is more of an honorable commemoration, actually. But Garvin only doubles down, writing, “Haha, I see my character reduced to a cartoon schill promoting some small game and I’m being harsh?” He then went on a somewhat lengthy series of attacks against a particular X user, seemingly expressing his belief that the character he spent years of his life working on has been exploited.

It’s an odd take, to say the least, especially considering Astro Bot is no small game by any metric. But then again, this isn’t the first time Garvin has been lambasted for having a bad take. Bend Studio had to previously speak out and distance themselves from the game director’s comments, particularly regarding a now-deleted tweet of his in which he blamed “woke reviewers” for Days Gone’s less-than-stellar critical reception. Garvin later revealed in an interview with VGC that he was fired from the studio for his “disruptive personality.”

On the flip side, Astro Bot has released to nothing but overwhelming praise, both critically and by fans, as it currently sits at a 94 Metascore and 9.5 User Score on Metacritic. It’s quite an upbeat turn for Sony after its disastrous Concord launch. And I myself can say it’s one of the best games released in the past few years! If you want to experience the joy of discovery for yourself, you can find Deacon and many, many more iconic characters in the fun “little” platformer as it looks back on and celebrates PlayStation’s rich history.