The Day Before's Early Access Trailer Hints at One Big…

Summary

The Day Before has faced development delays and copyright disputes, but the PC version is set to launch in Early Access in December.
The new trailer showcases gameplay mechanics such as weapon customization, missions, driving vehicles, and exploring the zombie-infested city.
However, the gameplay loop seems repetitive, focused primarily on gathering resources for the hub settlement of Woodberry, which might limit variety in the long run.

The Day Before has not had the best development cycle, facing multiple delays and a copyright dispute, leaving some fans wondering if the game will ever be released. The game missed its November 11 release target, and Xbox and PlayStation versions are unfortunately delayed indefinitely. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for PC fans with the zombie survival MMO hopefully launching in Early Access this December.

Developer Fntastic and publisher Mytona recently released a new trailer for The Day Before, showcasing some of its mechanics and gameplay. Players can customize weapons, complete missions, drive vehicles, explore the zombie-infested New Fortune City, decorate their character's house, or relax in the game's hub-settlement of Woodberry. However, while the open-world MMO offers plenty of things to do, one aspect of the gameplay loop seems both limited and awfully repetitive.

The Day Before Trailer Makes it Seem Repetitive

Based on the trailer, The Day Before begins with players waking in a clinic after being rescued by survivors from a settlement called Woodberry. Woodberry seems to be the game's primary hub area and features several amenities for players to take advantage of. These include the expected weapons, food, and item vendors, as well as a spa and gymnasium. Woodberry is also where players go to turn in quests and sell items gathered in the open world.

The survivors of Woodberry are in constant need of supplies and will reward players for salvaging food, building materials, and resources from the city and surrounding countryside. Players can do this on their own initiative or to fulfill specific requests from Woodberry residents. However, there doesn't appear to be much else for players to do that isn't in service to the endless loop of finding supplies and bringing them back to the same town.

To be clear, there seems to be plenty of variety in how players can go about completing that loop. The Day Before is a PvPvE game, allowing players to either cooperate against the zombies or attack each other for loot. Weapons are customizable, and the developer promises that each has unique characteristics, including realistic reloading and recoil. The Day Before players can even buy cars, letting players cruise through the post-apocalypse in style.

Features Listed in The Day Before Release Date Trailer

Open-world map
Richly detailed environment
Detailed character customization
Health, hunger, and thirst meters
Multiple zombie types
PvP combat
Weapon modification
Realistic weapon handling
Quest system
In-game spa and gym
Cars
Customizable player housing

The Potential Problem with The Day Before's Hub Town

However, all of that still seems to be in service to gathering resources for Woodberry. Players explore the city primarily to gather resources for Woodberry. They fight the zombies so they can explore more areas to gather resources for Woodberry and fight other players to steal their resources to take to Woodberry. Players can buy cars, the main benefit of which seems to be gathering supplies faster and from further away. The Day Before has crafting and survival mechanics, but one could argue that these are just obstacles on the resource-gathering circuit.

None of this is to say that those mechanics can't or won't be fun. The Day Before may also be suffering from more poor choices from its marketing department. However, it really seems like Fntastic and Mytona are advertising The Day Before as just an increasingly elaborate sequence of fetch quests for the same town.

In fairness, no one has yet to see the full game, so it's possible that The Day Before addresses this concern. Players may have a longer-term goal that adds additional context to the resource gathering. The Day Before may also feature more gameplay variety than the trailer leads viewers to believe, or perhaps its social aspects carry the game. However, that is not the impression that one gets from watching the trailer, and if one of those is the case, it's odd that The Day Before's developer hasn't talked more about it.

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