The Day Before is finally out, and according to its Steam reviews, it absolutely honks

rockpapershotgun.com:

Zombie survival "MMO" The Day Before has brought us one of the weirdest game development sagas of 2023. Developed by Fntastic, the game has been delayed numerous times, briefly disappeared from Steam after a trademark dispute, and was repeatedly accused of being a vapourware scam, accusations Fntastic attempted to rebuff with a gameplay reveal back in February.

The good news is, The Day Before is not vapourware, demonstrated by the fact that it launched on Steam last night and is available to purchase and play. The bad news, at least going by the game's Steam reviews, is that it is utterly, categorically terrible.

At the time of writing, The Day Before had just under 11,000 user reviews on Steam, which, wow, a lot of people are gagging to play a game that reeks like a zombie's boxer shorts, huh? And we are talking dreadful here. Of the reviews, just 15% are positive, giving the Day Before an overall rating of "overwhelmingly negative". The situation is succinctly described by reviewer Dr.Compton. "Turns out it is a real game. Kind of wish it wasn't."

As for what exactly the problems are, well the main issue, quelle surprise, is that the game is not what it was originally marketed as, namely an open world survival MMO. "The game isn't what was promised," writes Steam user EaZee. "This is basically a Tom Clancy's The Division rip off. You leave the city to loot, you come back and [p]ut furniture in your tent." Another reviewer, Biffa, echoes this sentiment. "No open-world survival elements, it's just an extraction shooter, and a bad one at that."

It might be difficult to understand why so many people were excited about The Day Before. Zombie survival experiences aren't exactly thin on the ground in video game