Following its skeptical development, many gamers have called The Day Before a scam, pointing at developer Fntastic’s shaky history of overselling previous projects, alleging the team has ripped assets from The Division, and plenty more accusations. In this article, we’re going to dive deeply into the controversy.
The Day Before Scam Controversy, Explained
Speculations claiming The Day Before is a scam disguised as an MMO zombie survival game started when the title blew up out of nowhere from an announcement trailer in 2021.
Gamers tried to keep their expectations low, but the trailer had exciting The Division vibes, and the loop of scouring abandoned places for materials and fighting zombies or even other players felt compelling. However, as development continued and Fntastic slowly revealed pieces of The Day Before through teasers and promotional material, those waiting noticed red flags.
Since 2021, the developer has promised to unveil many elements of The Day Before, but often when the date arrived to show raw clips, Fntastic would delay the reveal. This is similar to the game’s release date consistently getting pushed back mere days before launch, with its third delay moving to December 7, 2023, for its early access launch on PC.
In particular, the first release date delay was due to the game not being registered as a trademark before release, causing people to speculate the game wasn’t real, and even mods on the title’s official Discord channel who hadn’t seen game footage of The Day Before were concerned. Considering Fntastic’s avoidance of showing the actual game in its rawest form, gamers believed The Day Before had to be a scam.
Related: Will The Day Before Early Access Be on Xbox & PS5?
What supported this came by way of the scripted game teasers released over the years, highlighting what some claim as ripped assets from The Division and The Last of Us 2.
“Gameplay clips are basically IDENTICAL to The Division literally using identical art assets, animations, movement even right down to how and the weapon position when sheathed,” argued one Redditor on a thread discussing the game’s reputation. “A lot of the UI is ripped straight from The Last of Us 2, especially the aiming reticle and [the] way it responds.”
To be fair, Fntastic has stepped up and shown new gameplay and features this year. A short clip debuted in January showed live gunplay, and the final trailer published in November unveiled character creation, cooking, driving cars, house customization, and more.
Gamers have a better idea of what The Day Before is now, but some still believe the developer is overselling to entice gamers and will pan out horribly once players get their hands on it. Frankly, it’s hard to deduce what’s true because of how secretive the entire development process has been, but very soon (if Fntastic doesn’t delay), everyone will know the truth come December 7.
