Summary

  • The Day Before faced backlash from the gaming community due to the use of Unreal Engine marketplace assets and false advertising, leading to accusations of scamming its fans.
  • The Early Access version of The Day Before on Steam was riddled with bugs and fell far short of the promised gameplay features, causing disappointment and anger among players.
  • The lack of interactivity, progression system, enemy variety, and PvP content in The Day Before suggests that the game was hastily put together, damaging its chances of recovery and leaving an opportunity for another developer to create a better zombie survival MMO.

The Day Before has continued its string of controversies after the gaming community unearthed the Unreal Engine marketplace assets that make up the majority of its content. From being Steam's most-wanted game in November 2023 to launching with an overwhelmingly negative score on Steam, the fall from grace for The Day Before has been nothing short of catastrophic. When it was initially announced by Fntastic in 2021, The Day Before was billed as an open-world zombie-themed survival MMO.

However, the game that was released in December 2023 was anything but, as The Day Before was no longer a survival MMO, but rather styled itself an extraction shooter. The false advertisement, coupled with rumors of unpaid labor, made most critics accuse Fntastic of attempting to scam its fans, which prompted the developers to fire back with an awkward statement that alarmed skeptics even more.

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'Please Don't Accuse Us of Scamming' The Day Before Issues Statement Ahead of Early Access Launch

After a long and controversial road, The Day Before is set to release this week, and developer Fntastic has a message for critics.

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The Day Before is playable in a very loose interpretation of the word, as the Early Access version on Steam is not only extremely buggy but is also a shell of what the game promised prior to launch. Despite allegedly having five years of development, Reddit user bxbl discovered that The Day Before used an asset pack (worth $300) from the Unreal Engine marketplace for its entire city map, with the barn house, main hub, and player items allegedly being the sole original models. Another user in the same thread pointed out that The Day Before also used a game kit (worth $65) for its inventory and gameplay features.

The anger from its community caused The Day Before to shut down its Discord server, as many players flooded the platform with negative feedback, bug reports, complaints, and hateful comments. While 2023 was marked by a long list of terrific video game releases, The Day Before will instead join other notorious titles that came out during the year, such as Lord of the Rings: Gollum and The Walking Dead: Destinies.

The Day Before will likely not recover from its disastrous release, as many players have concluded that the game was cobbled together in a matter of months. The lack of any map interactivity, progression system, enemy variety, and PvP content imply that the marketing for The Day Before was dishonest from the get-go. The sleuthing that connected The Day Before's map and gameplay with the assets from the Unreal Engine marketplace perhaps offers the most damning piece of evidence that Fntastic never had a serious plan to make a zombie survival MMO, but given the huge interest the project sparked among gamers across the globe, the market is certainly there for someone else to do the concept justice.

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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