The Day Before is an upcoming survival MMO coming from developer FNTASTIC. The game is set to join the list of zombie survival games, with the emphasis being on co-operative play with friends and other gamers online. After it was revealed, The Day Before drew immediate comparisons to The Last of Us series for several reasons. This game sees developer FNTASTIC take a step closer to AAA game development, with their previous games, Radiant One and The Wild Eight being lower budget projects by comparison to its new survival MMO game.
The zombie-themed survival genre is a healthy one, and The Day Before will be joining some acclaimed titles when it releases. The likes of Dying Light and Days Gone have proven to be extremely popular in recent years. Where The Day Before will look to set itself apart from the rest of the genre, is the focus on survival with other players in a post-pandemic world, not unlike Tom Clancy's The Division franchise. It might be difficult for The Day Before to avoid comparisons to The Last of Us series. The latest gameplay showcase trailer reinforces that comparison, and in some ways likens it more to The Last of Us Part 2 rather than the original game.
The Day Before's Interiors and Environments
From the outset of the new trailer, some comparisons could be made to the Last of Us series. The trailer opens with the player character and several allied characters in a house. The group of characters is shown looting a house, with the player character taking valuables from a corpse. There is an immediate comparison that can be made to the houses that Joel and Ellie loot in the Last of Us series, with a similar time-worn and dilapidated aesthetic. Once the character steps outside of the dwelling and into the city, there is a further comparison to The Last of Us Part 2.
One of the significant early sections of The Last of Us Part 2 takes place in Seattle. While the location itself is different in The Day Before, there are some similarities. The city featured in the newest gameplay trailer for The Day Before shows a large city, partly ruined by post-pandemic life and heavily damaged in parts. The city's structures remain mostly intact and there is significant damage that can be seen from street-level, including destroyed vehicles and shuttered buildings. This creates a similar impression to the early sections of The Last of Us Part 2 that are set in Seattle.
The Humans of The Day Before
Despite how divisive The Last of Us Part 2 proved to be, a lot of fans and critics can agree it painted a ruthless picture of human society doing anything they can do to survive, including perpetrating violence against each other. The latest gameplay of The Day Before shows the player character and their compatriots doing battle against humans, and this could be indicative of a similar approach. The Day Before is a zombie survival game, but the latest trailer also implies a struggle for survival against other groups of humans. The premise of the game is that of survival at all costs in a post-pandemic America, and it seems to include a cycle of violence against fellow humans.
The Last of Us Part 2 featured severe human-on-human violence, and it looks like The Day Before could be incorporating similar levels of brutality. The gameplay shown in the trailer is third-person shooter action, just like what was shown in the first gameplay reveal. On this occasion, however, the action is against other humans.
The gunplay is third-person shooter fare, with the player character using derelict cars as cover to block enemy attacks. Towards the end of the gameplay, the player character approaches an incapacitated foe and shoots them point-blank in the head. Not only does The Day Before look to be emulating the theme of humanity-based violence, but the new gameplay suggests that the title might match the severity of it as well.
The Day Before seems similar to games like The Division and The Last of Us, when it comes to the setting and survival aspects, but the game has a chance to carve out its own niche as well. The inspiration is obvious to a lot of gamers, but the open-world of The Day Before contains other players who may or may not be hostile, which could keep the game feeling fresh. The comparisons to The Last of Us Part 2 and its focus on survival against zombie-like enemies and humans are unlikely to cease any time soon, but The Day Before and its developer FNTASTIC stand a strong chance to make the MMO more than just a clone of what has come before.
The Day Before is currently in development with an unspecified release date for PC.