The Day Before, arguably 2023’s most controversial game, has finally been released after several delays and we played it. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
The Day Before Review Overview
The Day Before Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Graphics Can Look Pretty Good, But Only If Your Setup Can Handle It | A "Zombie Survival" Game With Not Nearly Enough Zombies It’s Not at All What It Was Advertised As Ridiculous Amount of Bugs and Crashes |
The Day Before Overall - 36/100
With The Day Before’s controversial release dismissing theories about it being a "fake" game, I kind of wish it was. It’s so bad and isn’t at all what it was advertised as. There are hardly any zombies, you won’t feel any sense of danger, graphic performance is bad, and all you do is scavenge for supplies. I have never hated a game more than I hate this game.
The Day Before Story - 4/10
The Day Before is set during the zombie apocalypse in a fictional American east coast city resembling New York. You start off being rescued by the citizens of Woodberry, a thriving community for survivors. As a new citizen, you’ll be carrying out tasks for different characters, often asking you to look for something in New Fortune City. It’s a really generic story, with nothing particularly standing out.
The Day Before Gameplay - 1/10
The Day Before is labeled as an open-world survival MMO. It’s not open-world, it’s not an MMO, and there aren’t nearly enough zombies to put you in any real danger. With the quests bestowed upon you, you’ll mostly be walking around the empty city looking through cars and trash cans for a battery or something. The game barely rewards you with anything substantial, so there’s pretty much no point in progressing through the game. It’s just the same gameplay loop of scavenging materials, barely firing your weapon, and extracting to "safety."
The Day Before Visuals - 5/10
The game can potentially look very nice, provided you’re running it on an ultra high-end setup. On low graphics settings, which is what most people would be running with, the game looks subpar at best. However, even on a decent PC setup and low settings, the game kept freezing and the frames kept dropping to single digits. It can potentially be a visual delight for some people, provided that the city is pretty detailed, but for most, it’s literally unplayable.
The Day Before Audio - 6/10
If anything, the audio in this game is the only thing I don’t have any issues with. Voice acting is decent, sound effects are alright, and the soundtrack is mediocre at best. Nothing bad about The Day Before’s audio, but it’s nothing special either.
The Day Before Value for money - 2/10
This game was supposedly developed for five years, but it still feels incomplete. It’s nothing like the trailers we got, or what the devs told us it would be. It’s so bad. Spend your $40 on literally anything else and it’d be more worth it.
The Day Before Review | It’s Real But I Wish It Wasn’t
5 years of development and the game still managed to fail in such spectacular fashion. The game’s official description is as follows: “Following a terrible pandemic, players must survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic world of The Day Before filled with infected monsters and other opportunistic survivors. An MMO and survival game from FNTASTIC, The Day Before boasts an open-world, multiplayer environment where players can scavenge and fight for their lives.”
Now let’s break that down into what’s actually factual and what’s not. It’s not “filled with infected monsters” at all. In fact, there are hardly any of them out there. It’s not an MMO because only around 32 players are allowed in a lobby, nor is it a survival game. It’s an extraction shooter, and a terrible one at that. It’s not open-world, and you’ll barely feel like you’re in any real danger, so fighting for your life rarely happens in the game. The only thing factual about that is that you can scavenge, which is around 60% of the game. Around 35% of your gameplay will be bugs, crashes, and glitches, and only around 5% of the time is actually spent on actual combat.
While the maps of New Fortune City and Woodberry are pretty nice and detailed, that’s where the praises end. The game’s developers lied about pretty much everything, and I absolutely hate how I was expecting at least something resembling what we saw in the trailers. The story is super generic, especially for a zombie game. Even the name of Woodberry, the safe haven for survivors in the game, was taken from literally the most popular zombie show of all time, The Walking Dead’s Woodbury led by the vicious Governor.
Gameplay is as bland as it gets, with very little combat, a lack of zombies, and a repetitive loop of getting items from the abandoned city for the Woodberry people. That’s pretty much all you do in this game. You’re the errand boy and there’s not much else to it. In exchange for the services you provide, you’ll be paid in Woodberry coins, which is the currency in the game. Use these to purchase supplies, weapons, and such. However, these weapons are nearly identical to each other, and aren’t anything special.
The game will give you a plot of land to reside in. You can build a house, and decorate it like you would in a Sims game. However, there’s no point in doing so and it’s just a waste of money, much like buying this game.
Pros of The Day Before
| Things The Day Before Got Right |
|---|
|
Graphics Can Look Pretty Good, but Only if Your Setup Can Handle It |
Graphics Can Look Pretty Good, but Only if Your Setup Can Handle It
As the sole pro of this lousy game, which in a sense, can be listed as a con as well, the graphics in this game can look very nice. However, you’ll need a very powerful PC with expensive high-end parts to run it smoothly on high settings. I watched some streams of others playing this game, like Dr. Disrespect, to see if it was just me having issues. To my surprise, it didn't look bad at all, and actually looked pretty good. However, the high end hardware is simply a luxury that sadly not a lot of people can realistically afford. In my experience on a decent setup capable of running AAA games at 144 FPS, I was barely able to get to 60 FPS. My playthrough was extremely laggy and full of single digit frame drops, even on low settings.
Cons of The Day Before
| Things That The Day Before Can Improve |
|---|
|
A "Zombie Survival" Game With Not Nearly Enough Zombies It’s Not at All What It Was Advertised As Ridiculous Amount of Bugs and Crashes |
A "Zombie Survival" Game With Not Nearly Enough Zombies
I’ve never heard of a zombie game that lacks zombies, and obviously for good reason, up until I played The Day Before. When you encounter more friendly human NPCs than zombies, that’s not a good sign at all for a zombie survival game. Because of this, the game is almost entirely an abandoned city looting simulator. There’s a total absence of a sense of danger and it makes the game a total snoozefest. I don’t understand how they can mess this part up, really. The environments are so empty, and in the rare case that zombies are actually around, they’re not that hard to take down. They also behave in such a strange way like giving up very easily. Unlike in most zombie games and films, headshots aren’t satisfying to pull off, nor do they kill them faster, it seems.
It’s Not at All What It Was Advertised As
As explained above, what we got couldn’t be more different from what was shown in trailers, and how the developers described the game. It’s not an MMO because you barely come across people, it’s not an open-world game, and it’s barely a survival game due to the glaring absence of threats to your safety. The trailers for this game did not age well at all, as if they changed their mind on what the game should be like halfway through development.
Ridiculous Amount of Bugs, FPS Drops, and Crashes
Bugs and crashes are to be expected in an early access game. However, not to this degree. I experienced so many FPS drops, bugs, and crashes that it made up more than one third of my experience. After having been part of numerous early access launches, this one by far had the most bugs and crashes. It’s unplayable and unacceptable.
Is The Day Before Worth It?
Absolutely not.
To say that The Day Before did not live up to its hype is an understatement. They completely missed the mark and gave us an unfinished game, even after several delays. I have never disliked a game more than this one. It’s a waste of time to play, and a waste of money to purchase.
The Day Before Overview & Premise
You’re rescued by the people of Woodberry, a thriving settlement amidst the zombie apocalypse, and wake up in their infirmary. You’re then granted citizenship, and are now a contributing member of their society. You’ll have to earn Woodberry coins to sustain yourself, which you can do by venturing out to the dangerous New Fortune City and gathering supplies for Woodberry’s citizens.
The Day Before FAQ
What is the server size in The Day Before?
A server can contain only 32 people at a time.
The Day Before Product Information
 |
|
| Title | THE DAY BEFORE |
|---|---|
| Release Date | December 7, 2023 |
| Developer | Fntastic |
| Publisher | MyTona |
| Supported Platforms | PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | MMO, Shooter, Adventure |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | Rating Pending |
| Official Website | The Day Before Website |
