The Day Before is currently Steam’s second most wish-listed game on the platform behind Hogwarts Legacy. However, this so-called “open-world MMO” has now come under fire after gamers claim that the entire project is a complete scam.
The Day Before is dubbed an “open-world MMO set in a deadly, post-pandemic America overrun by flesh-hungry infected and survivors killing each other for food, weapons and cars”. The game’s popularity has come about thanks to a number of factors. Firstly, the debut trailer managed to rake in over 5 million views across various YouTube channels last year when it was announced.
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Secondly, the gameplay also looked quite fun. During the trailers, players were able to get an idea of what they would be doing in the game. There’s a sprawling open world to explore, lots of things to kill and even a good amount of daily life mechanics to tackle such as building your hut, gathering resources and surviving.
Sadly, all of this positivity has now been overshadowed by yet another delay for The Day Before. As a result, gamers are now questioning the game’s existence. According to the development team behind The Day Before, the latest delay, which has caused the game to be pushed back by eight months, is due to a copyright issue related to the game’s name. For some reason, the studio didn’t file a trademark for the name.
In a statement, Fntastic claims that the team was only made aware of a copyright claim against The Day Before last week on 19 January. The statement says that due to this new claim, which has just sprung out of nowhere, The Day Before has now been delayed from March 2023 all the way to November. In addition, the so-called “extensive gameplay video” which the dev team was going to showcase this month, has also been cancelled.
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) January 25, 2023
Delays happen but the story got suspicious when the moderator of the game’s Discord channel claimed that even though he has worked alongside the development team for a while now, he has yet to see any gameplay footage himself. He claims that the mod team at the studio have not seen any gameplay at all. Even though the team was meant to showcase so-called “raw” gameplay this month, no one saw anything.
Another statement by Fntastic set off alarm bells earlier this month too. The studio posted a message on Discord where the team claimed that “after careful consideration and discussions” with its leadership, they had been given the approval to share anticipated information. As a result, the team would share raw gameplay as per “the numerous requests” by the community.
The Day Before’s lead discord mod, who earlier announced the upcoming gameplay reveal, has said they now wonder if the game is real. They also confirm that the mod team have not seen any gameplay. https://t.co/tCWanVz0SP pic.twitter.com/y0QurxzdKX
— Skill Up (@SkillUpYT) January 25, 2023
Of course, gamers want to see gameplay but this statement comes across like Fntastic were doing fans a favour by sharing content on The Day Before. The devs also made it sound like they had to jump through fire hoops to get approval in order to show off this footage. Sort of like it has been hush-hush and that’s the reason why we haven’t seen anything yet.
This could all just be one strange coincidence but fans aren’t buying it. The majority of the game’s supporters are now calling its bluff claiming that The Day Before is a complete scam. The studio has yet to comment.
This story reminds me of a similar ongoing one for the PS5 game Abandoned. It was also overshadowed by controversy after the development team promised content which was never delivered. The game has been in hiding ever since.
