Editor’s Note: Even before we could finalize and publish our early access review, the developer made a surprising announcement about shutting down, leading to The Day Before being taken off the market. While the servers are still operational for those who purchased the game and haven’t sought a refund, our reviewer took the time to thoroughly explore it. In light of the situation, it only makes sense to share their thoughts on the game during the time it was available.
Five long years. That’s the amount of development time the now-defunct developer FNTASTIC supposedly took to assemble The Day Before. However, this online zombie survival shooter falls drastically short of the promises made during its development, culminating in a disastrous early access release.
Despite initial claims of being an MMO, The Day Before hardly qualifies as a survival shooter. My experience with the game was cut short after just a few hours due to severe performance issues on my GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and Ryzen 3900x-equipped PC. Even if the technical issues were resolved, the core gameplay – wandering around a poorly designed city, collecting loot until inevitable death or a successful gear upgrade – proved to be uninspiring.
Unfortunately, the game’s demise came before any meaningful improvements or updates, leaving players with a disappointing and unfulfilled experience. The Day Before, once anticipated, is now a cautionary tale of a game that failed to live up to its ambitious promises.
