Summary

  • The Day Before's base building system falls short compared to other games, lacking depth and impact on gameplay.
  • Base building in The Day Before is achieved through purchasing items with in-game currency, rather than crafting with gathered resources.
  • The game's base building features are disconnected from the rest of the game world and offer minimal benefits, resembling casual games rather than survival titles.

The Day Before has been abandoned by developer Fntastic just a few days after its Early Access launch, leaving many to wonder what the original plan was for the title, and what it could have looked like if it reached its full potential. As Fntastic tries to cover its tracks after the disastrous launch of its hyped-up game, it's worth looking at The Day Before's base building system, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses in comparison to some of the other games it attempts to emulate, as it is a good example of where the game fell short.

Base building is a considerably popular feature in gaming, rising to prominence over the course of the 2010s through games like Minecraft, Subnautica, and ARK: Survival Evolved. Featured primarily in survival games, base building is often a key part of a title's gameplay loop, as players use their settlements for shelter or other gameplay advantages, which allows them to venture out and gather more building materials, and so on. The Day Before was advertised as an MMO with survival elements, and while this description turned out to be rather inaccurate, it still retains some of the fundamental elements of settlement and base building shared by other, more successful games.

How The Day Before's Base Building Measures Up

The Day Before is not truly a survival game, and its settlement building reflects that. Rather than gathering materials for crafting and gradually upgrading a home base, players are simply gifted a plot of land at the start of the game and shown a menu containing a slew of furnishings and different structure types. Everything pertaining to the home base itself can be purchased with Woodbury Coins, The Day Before's in-game currency, rather than crafted through resources found through exploration.

Additionally, unlike a traditional survival game like DayZ, The Day Before's base-building has a surprisingly small impact on gameplay, with the only obvious benefit to expanding a base, beyond personalization, being an increase in storage capacity. This is due in large part to the fact that the plot of land that players build on is completely disconnected from the rest of the game world, and isn't at risk of being attacked by NPC zombies or other players. In this way, base building features in The Day Before can be likened to those found in more casual games, such as:

  • Pokemon Diamond & Pearl
  • Animal Crossing
  • Minecraft (Creative Mode)
  • Stardew Valley
  • Story of Seasons
  • The Sims

The Day Before criticism has centered mostly on the nature of the game's development and Fntastic itself (false advertising, swift studio shutdown, etc.), but its relatively shallow mechanics are worth dissecting as well. The inconsequential and limited base-building options featured in the game might actually be enjoyable for those looking for a low-stakes side-activity similar to Hogwarts Legacy's Room of Requirement, but it's not the best fit for a game labeling itself as a survival title. If The Day Before aimed to be more of a life-sim or a so-called "cozy" game, that would be one thing, but that's not what most players were hoping to get out of it.

In all fairness, Fntastic was fairly transparent about how The Day Before's base-building would work ahead of its launch, describing it as being inspired by Animal Crossing and other low-stakes building games. Still, while it may not be the most controversial element of The Day Before, base building can perhaps be viewed as a microcosm of Fntastic's shortcomings with the game, as it straddles the line between survival games like Valheim and casual games like Animal Crossing, while not fully fleshing the system out one way or the other. This lack of focus and flimsy identity is, arguably, a major issue in the entirety of The Day Before, not just in its base building.

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The Day Before game tag page cover art

The Day Before
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Open-World
Zombie
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Systems
PC-1
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Top Critic Avg: 12 /100
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Released
December 7, 2023
Developer(s)
Fntastic
Publisher(s)
MYTONA
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
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The Day Before offers players a uniquely reimagined journey into post-apocalyptic open-world MMO survival set in the present day on the US East Coast following a deadly pandemic.


SURVIVE AT ALL COSTS
Fight other players for survival. Survive against the deadly infected. Collect valuable loot.


DISCOVER THE NEW POST-PANDEMIC WORLD
Explore the beautiful and richly detailed New Fortune City. Enter tall skyscrapers, business centers, massive malls, grand stadiums, and more. Uncover distant surroundings of New Fortune City on stunningly detailed vehicles.


REBUILD SOCIETY
Join the Woodberry survivor colony on its mission to rebuild society. Trade items in Woodberry and save your wealth in a personal storage room. Build your own home in the safe zone.

Platform(s)
PC
Genre(s)
Open-World, Zombie