This post details the preparation and tactics to defeat the biggest horde in Days Gone: the 300-freaker Mt. Bailey Horde. The tips and strategies are specific to this one horde but also apply to the numerous other hordes in the world of Days Gone. Be the last man standing with this Days Gone Horde Guide.
Days Gone Horde Guide – Pre-emptive Strike
If you’ve studied the horde behavior, then you know the best time to hunt them is during the daylight hours. At this time of day they are in “sleep” mode — usually residing in caves. Only at night do they come out and roam the wasteland. The daylight hours allows you to make the first attack, while they are grouped together.
The one benefit to fighting a horde at night is the ability to remain in stealth in the tall grass. The horde AI is really not that smart. You could stay in the tall grass, throw an attractor, and then toss a molotov or grenade once they bunch up. You could repeat this until the horde has but only a few stragglers left. As long as you are not standing and aiming the attractor/grenade for too long, your stealth mode will not be broken.
Stealth is also an option during daylight hours, as long as you can lure them out of their hideouts without alerting them to your presence. But it’s not really an exciting way to take out a horde.
Days Gone Horde Guide – Loadout
Although the Weapons Merchant on the Wizard Island camp has some nice gear, the very best weapons are obtain at certain progress milestones in the Horde Killer Storyline. Once you have completed 60% of that Storyline, you will have unlocked the Auto Shotgun, IDF PUP, and the MG 55. In actuality, the MG 55 Special Weapon is sufficient enough. The majority of the firepower to reduce the horde numbers comes from explosives.
However, you’ll need to start somewhere in terms of firearms. My favorites from the Weapons Merchants is the Crowdbreaker (Primary), and then upgrade to the Liberator (Primary). You can find those from Iron Mike’s camp in the Lost Lake region. After that, I would upgrade to the Chicago Chopper (Primary) from the Wizard Island camp. The Lil’ Stubby for the Sidearm is a good complement.
Days Gone Horde Guide – Preparation
As stated before, explosives are the key to bringing the horde to extinction. Before taking on a horde, visit a Weapons Merchant and purchase all the Grenades and Flashbangs that you can. Collect as many crafting materials as you can. The game will make you think that hordes are best eliminated with Molotovs and Napalm Molotovs, but it’s not the case. I’ve found that grenades are the absolute best weapon to drop a lot of them quickly.
- Watch this video on how to unlock the ‘Burnout Apocalypse’ trophy in Days Gone
The key player I used to take out the Mt. Bailey Horde is the Remote Bomb. This item cannot be purchased. What’s so good about the Remote Bomb? I’ll explain.
At maximum capacity, Deacon is able to carry up to 6 Remote Bombs. You can place all 6 anywhere you wish, and each bomb will detonate in the order that you placed them. However, if you place them too close to each other, the first bomb detonation will also cause the other bombs close by to explode. The exploit here is that this does not cause the remaining bombs to be inert. You can still detonate bombs 2 through 6 just fine. This works as of game version 1.07.
Days Gone Horde Guide – Line It Up; the First 50%
So the best way that I’ve decided to place the Remote Bombs for maximum damage is in a straight line. This line should be the path in which the freakers will come after you. The first bomb should be the furthest away from the cave entrance (or where ever they reside), with the last bomb the closest. This way, you know to trigger the detonation of the first bomb as the first of the horde pack reaches bomb 1.
Bomb 1 will then detonate the remaining other remote bombs, which will cover the space of the entire horde. Immediately after, you’ll want to continue pressing the detonate button 5 more times to use up the remaining remote bombs.
But before you do all this, you’ll have to decide how to approach the initial attack. I prefer to toss in a flashbang grenade first, because there will always be a few freakers that act like scouts and charge ahead before the bulk of the group follows. The flashbang stuns them and prevents them from obscuring my view or interrupting my attack. Then afterwards, I like to toss in a Molotov into the cave to light things up and allow me to see where to shoot.
This initial attack along with the remote bomb trick will decimate the first 50% of the 300-freaker Horde. This means 150 freakers killed in 20 seconds.
Days Gone Horde Guide – The Last 50%
So now that the horde is chasing you, you’ll want to rely on your Flashbangs and Grenades. But first, go ahead and use a Focus Cocktail to replenish your focus which you probably used on the initial cave assault. If you really need the other cocktails, you can use them as well. The only time I really use Focus is to use the MG 55 to get rid of the closest freakers within melee range.
To best maximize the explosives, you’ve got to bunch up the horde. One of the best ways to do this is by verticality — climbing up something tall will do the trick. The Old Sawmill horde is a good example of this. But sometimes you don’t have that environmental opportunity. This is where the flashbangs come in.
Toss a flashbang directly to your side, or a little bit ahead of you while running. I like to roll afterwards to dodge any potential attacks. The flashbang will stun the “head” of the horde, causing them to bunch up. This is your opportunity to toss a grenade in the center of the mob. The important thing to remember is that after you toss the flashbang, you want to run up to higher ground, or cut out at a 90° angle. This will allow you to aim your grenade without any obstruction.
Days Gone Horde Guide – Cleanup
With at full inventory capacity, with 6 flashbangs and 6 grenades you should be able to destroy the horde with ease. The MG 55, or your favorite shotgun can clean up the rest. Remember that when the reticle turns red, it means you’ve got a confirmed kill. Go ahead and switch your aim to a different target.
Even if they decide to “fix” the Remote Bomb trick, there is still plenty of ways to be rid of hordes. You can do it by stealth from the bushes, or you can decide to run-and-gun. You can plant proximity mines, and orchestrate a specific run through explosive red barrels. You can also funnel them through a shipping crate, and use a high-penetration sniper rifle when they try to squeeze through.
Questions or comments? Post them down below. Do you have any tips to share? Leave a post on what your horde strategy is. Check out our other Days Gone articles, like the guide to find all the Cairns, or the IPCA Tech collectibles to craft the Stun Gun.
IDF pup is NOT the best gun… do you even look at stats? Compare it to the Chicago chopper in the locker, it works the same as if you’re about to pick a gun up in the wild. The comparison it shows you is what you’re going to switch TO. You can see that in the locker if you’re equipped with the IDF, it shows mag capacity (once you unlock upgrades) as 80 in green, referring to the bigger mag of the chopper. Compare that to 65 for the IDF, not to mention you can carry 275 rounds for the chopper and only 175 for the IDF. The only thing the IDF is better at is accuracy. Chopper is even slightly better at damage and range.
It’ s a play style thing Az. The IDF is significantly more accurate than the CC. My eldest son, who is superb at FPS games, can’t stand the CC and absolutely slays oncoming hordes with the IDF. Head shot after heat shot after head shot.
I on the other hand do not have that smart level of shooting skill and fin the CC significantly better for hordes as the big ammo boost let me spray hordes.
Other than that, they are very much equal guns. I think a fully upgraded MG55 is probably the best, but it’s so late in the game, after most hordes are gone, that it’s not in the discussion. Oh, the article is spot on about grenades. They are far and away the best weapon against a horde group.
The article begins by saying the biggest horde is the Mt. Bailey Horde with 300 freakers. This is incorrect as the Sawmill Horde has 500 freakers. There are also four other hordes as large with 300 freakers. It is even possible to be pursued by more than one horde at the same time. Daytime is not always the best time to kill a horde. If you like to hide and throw attractors and explosives, which is the quickest and easiest way to kill most of them or cut them down to an easier size, sometimes there is no place to hide near their lair, but there is a bush to hide in or a place they can’t get to you near where they go at night, which will include separate a separate feeding place and drinking place at a river, lake, or pond. Shotguns like the Crowdbreaker are not the best weapons for hordes because you have to spend so much time reloading them while the freakers rush at you and attack. The Auto Shotgun is the best of them with 16 shots, but you will still spend much of the time reloading. Assault rifles and of course LMGs are much better for hordes. You can get the best SMP9 after killing only four of the smaller hordes, which can be done very soon in the game, and switch to that from your assault rifle or LMG instead of reloading sometimes. Many small hordes are made available in Cascade and Belknap after going to Lost Lakes the first time, and you can get an MG45 from bad guys in Lost Lakes to go back up and kill those 15 hordes with that is much better than shotguns or other weapons at that time. Killing those hordes then quickly gets you the IDF Pup and level 3 trust for the US556 and your own MG45. There are places you can perch where you can kill the hordes and they can’t even get at you for some of them. There are places available from the beginning of the game where you can get attractors and explosives without crafting, making killing the small hordes easy. Using the last of any item makes Deacon stand up for a moment so that he will be seen by freakers. There are some good points in the article, but there is a lot more to killing the hordes. There will be much better weapons available much quicker if you start killing them as soon as possible. There is a lot of variety in the hordes and tactics you can use, and if one learns about how to fight them, they become very enjoyable despite being very scary at first. The developers of the game did an amazing job with them.