Days Gone best melee weapons: Strongest early game weapons

Days Gone has finally arrived on Steam and the Epic Game Store, allowing tens of thousands of players to enjoy this visually beautiful post-apocalyptic zombie adventure. 

Days Gone offers quite engaging action from the get-go and during your adventure, you will stumble across numerous weapons of all kinds, but not all of them are quite good.

Given that Freakers, the game's zombies, are quite fast and can move rapidly, they will easily close the gap between the players and the horde, which will often force you into close-range combat when guns might not be as effective as melee weapons.

In addition, they react to sounds and can alert others if things get too noisy, so it is safer and smarter to use melee weapons whenever you can in order to stay silent.

(Picture: Sony)

As with many other post-apocalyptic games, when it comes to melee weapons, the game uses a find-and-craft approach, offering a variety of hand-made melee weapons from the materials found across the map.

If you prefer melee combat, Days Gone's skill system offers several very useful skills which support that playstyle. 

If you want to focus on melee combat you should pick these skills for Deacon, the game's main character:

Field Repair is an absolute must, as your melee weapons have durability and can easily break beyond repair if not maintained. This skill allows you to collect scrap through Oregon, and use it to repair damaged weapons.

The other two important are  The Home Run and Hard Hitter, which are both self-explanatory, as they both grant more damage to your melee attacks. 

Now when you know all of these important details, let's check out some of the best melee weapons in Days Gone.

5. The Ripper Blade 

The Ripper Blade will be one of your best friends early in the game.

It has very high damage and nice durability, and it can kill both Freakers and humans in one or two blows.

In order to craft it, you will need a Stool Leg, a Sawblade, and Scrap, but you will unlock the recipe only after you complete the "They Will Never Stop" mission.

4. Machete

(Picture: Sony)

You know that you can't make a mistake with a machete. The Lawn Mower Machete is a particularly nasty piece of equipment.

It is by far one of the best weapons early in the game, and it can be obtained quite easily, not just from crafting but also from finding around the world.

It has excellent durability and medium damage, but it can still finish off a Freaker in just a few hits.

You can find one stuck into a crate during the "Chasing Leon" mission when clearing out the ambush camp.

3. The Baseball Bat Axe

(Picture: Sony)

This is the best weapon in the game that can be crafted. The two remaining weapons on the list you will need to search for.

In order to unlock the recipe, you'll need to clear 29% of the Ambush Camp Hunter mission.

You will need a Baseball Bat, a Sawblade, and some Scrap in order to craft the Baseball Bat Axe.

The weapon boasts high damage and near maxed out durability. Asides from crafting it, you can also randomly find it during the game, but that won't be quite an easy thing to do.

2. The Superior Mace

(Picture: Sony)

The second best melee weapon in the game. It will one-shot most of the normal enemies during the day, and each swing costs around 3% durability.

• Read more: Days Gone difficulty levels: What is Survival Mode?

Both the weapon's damage and durability are maxed out, and the only weak point of this weapon is that is it slightly slower, which means that sometimes you can be overwhelmed by enemies due to slowness if there's too much of them.

1. The Superior Metal Axe

(Picture: Sony)

By far the best melee weapon in the game, with maxed out both damage and durability.

It will one-shot most of the regular enemies, and even Breaker will fall in 4-5 strikes.

It uses only around 2% of its durability per hit, which means almost 50 attacks before you need to repair it with the Field Repairs skill.

For more about the open-world survival-horror title, check out our dedicated Days Gone section, featuring guides, PC settings, requirements and more.