On Friday, video game fans were given a glimpse of what very well could be the next great survival horror game — The Day Before. Developed by FNTASTIC, the game is being sold as an open-world MMO survival horror with a mix of PvP and PvE elements. Think DayZ meets The Division.
Fans were given a first look at the game back in January when the original “Announcement” gameplay trailer was released. Friday’s gameplay trailer built on the promises of that first trailer by further teasing out the game’s seemingly massive, yet detailed, open-world.
The 13-minutes gameplay trailer begins with two players driving through a riverbank in two different vehicles — animations involving the vehicles and their interaction with the mud and water were extremely impressive. The two players then cleared out and looted a zombie-infested gas station before moving on to loot a farmhouse in the middle of the country.
This is where things got interesting. Upon entering the house, one of the players accidentally set off an alarm and was unable to enter the correct disarm code in time. This led to the house producing a loud siren, drawing a horde of zombies to the players’ location. The subsequent shootout attracted a squad of enemy players to the farmhouse. Opting to avoid a PvP encounter, the two players snuck out the back and entered an underground bunker before the trailer cut to black.
All of this looks incredibly promising. If The Day Before is truly as dynamic as these first two gameplay trailers have shown it to be, it could be one of best games of the current gaming generation.
Massive open-world games have been done well before. So have survival MMOs. But mashing those two aspects together with a heavily detailed intricate environment would be something new entirely.
Gamers excited for the debut of this new game should exercise caution, however. The two trailers FNTASTIC has debuted thus far appear to be heavily scripted. It may turn out to be that the gameplay showcased within them is not at all representative of the game in its entirety.
What remains to be seen from these trailers is how truly intricate and detailed the world of The Day Before actually is. In other words, the open-world may be big, but does it feel lived in? Can players interact with the environment in numerous ways? Can players explore the interiors of every single building or only a select few?
There’s a history of games failing to live up to the promises of early trailers. Games such as Watch Dogs, Destiny, and No Man’s Sky come to mind. As is the case with The Day Before, gameplay trailers for these games promised revolutionary advances in gaming. None of these games lived up to those promises, with the end products ranging in quality from mediocre to subpar.
If The Day Before is as detailed as the trailer suggests, the game will be incredibly immersive to a revolutionary extent. Otherwise, if the trailers turn out to be more misleading than not, The Day Before may simply be a DayZ clone with better graphics.
