The Day Before branded a ‘scam’, gets roasted in the reviews
The idea of an open-world, survival, extraction shooter sounds like it would tick all the boxes - effectively giving us a Day Z meets Call of Duty's canned DMZ. Unfortunately, it looks like Fntastic might've overpromised, as it's safe to say, The Day Before has been royally roasted online.
The Day Before was embroiled in plenty of controversy long before its December 7 release. Fntastic claimed a trademark dispute led to its being pulled from Steam, while gameplay trailers not stacking up with what was shown back in 2021 means it was branded a 'scam' before release. Now, those 'scam' allegations are back.
The Day Before branded a 'scam' on Steam
Click to enlargeThe odds were already stacked against The Day Before, but unlike the usual review-bombing where venomous gamers want to pull a title down because they think it's "woke" or it's an exclusive not on a console they own, there are some genuine reasons for The Day Before's "Overwhelmingly Negative" reviews.
At the time of writing, The Day Before has 8,755 negative reviews compared to just 1,713 positive ones. One beefy takedown reads, "This is not a Open World MMO, This Is a small area extraction shooter. The devs deleted all the old videos showing the open world elements."
They go on to say the city is dead and The Day Before needs to remove its claims of being a survival game to simply stake itself as an extraction-based shooter like Escape from Tarkov. Another added, "This game is a scam. No open-world survival elements, it's just an extraction shooter, and a bad one at that."
A third says, "LMAO - not an MMO, not open world. Lying about the genre is a bad start. It's a bad Tarkov with zombies." The worst reads, "Turns out it is a real game. Kind of wish it wasn't." It's clear some didn't think The Day Before would ever be released.
The Day Before is off to a bad start
Click to enlargeFntastic is already fighting a losing battle, with the reviewer that called it a scam also claiming the positive reviews are faked. They concluded, "Check out all the comments on reviews that are negative with private accounts/barely any hours played on games. either that or there's a bunch of weirdos defending this game. game is trash regardless."
It's important to note that the likes of No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 have turned their rocky launches around to deliver something truly special. However, both of these had relatively minor complaints to the public lambasting The Day Before. Although bugs and glitches are in full effect here, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
We can't help but be reminded of those Twitter ads that show a game and then get called out in the Community Notes for lying about their gameplay. Either way, we imagine The Day Before could soon be dropping its MMO credentials. If you wanted to be a simple extraction shooter, you should've just said.
