After trademark disputes, multiple delays, and everything in between, FNTASTIC has finally released The Day Before on Steam in early access. But it is not off to the best start right now with many players complaining, citing server and performance issues as among the biggest problems.
At time of writing, The Day Before’s Steam page has been flooded with negative reviews from users. Many criticize that despite being labeled an open-world game or an MMO, in reality, it is an extraction shooter, as some players have pointed out.
One reviewer posted about how their character was randomly falling through the map as soon as the opening cutscene ended. My colleague Mark Medina actually suffered the same thing himself, and he was kind enough to upload the first 22 minutes of the game along with the infamous bug right at the beginning, which you can check out below:
IGN’s Twenty Questions – Guess the game!
That is, of course, assuming you were able to get into the game at all, as many players aired their frustrations online about the server issues.
The Day Before launched and the servers are apparently getting crushed, can’t start the game at all. pic.twitter.com/E6gyPCR83E
— Spawn Wave (@SpawnWaveMedia) December 7, 2023
Even developer FNTASTIC acknowledged that there was an overload of the North American servers on X/Twitter.
Overload on North American servers. The servers are working. Fills up too quickly. #thedaybefore
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 7, 2023
That does not even consider other issues players have had. For instance, one user on The Day Before subreddit pointed out that despite being a zombie game, the zombies are anything but threatening.
What’s more, the developer seems to be totally overwhelmed by the negative feedback. At the time this was written, mods of the official The Day Before Discord had shut down discussion in most server channels, saying the following:
We’ve made the decision to temporarily lock the channel for several reasons. Firstly, it’s essential to let things calm down due to the overwhelming toxicity that we currently cannot manage effectively. Secondly, we need to channel all bug reports to the development team, and we can’t accomplish this if we aren’t allowed to share those reports.
Continuous moderation here is diverting our time away from addressing major bugs and making crucial fixes. A patch is in the works, so please be prepared for an upcoming game update.
IGN has reached out to FNTASTIC for comment.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.