The Day Before, an open-world survival MMO that mixes the DNA of The Division and The Last of Us, is sitting pretty at the top of Steam’s wishlist chart. It was announced at the start of 2021 with a confusing but pretty trailer, then got a release date of June 11. Now, via IGN, developer Fntastic and publisher Mytona have announced a delay to March 2023, citing a change to Unreal Engine 5.
The game has been accused of being vaporware in various online communities, and it’s not hard to see why. The initial trailer features some pretty locales, but clearly canned animations, UI inserted over the top of the video, scripted sequences, and some odd implications about enemy players that are clearly AI-controlled. It also has a voice over that sounds like it’s being read by a Microsoft Sam off-shoot.
Later trailers don’t do much to convince me it’s improved. It does just enough to remind you of the great games it’s clearly inspired by, but not quite enough to hide what is likely too much ambition and not enough budget beneath. Some very pretty art, though (I looked but couldn’t find anything that matched what’s seen exactly on the Unreal asset store).
Which brings us to the delay, which claims a switch to Unreal Engine 5 means June 11, 2022 has become March 1, 2023. Engine switches range from mild version upgrades to complete restarts of game development, but by all accounts going from UE4 to UE5 is relatively easy. Deliberately so, since the ever-powerful Epic Games wanted as many people on the new stuff as possible. Clearly, Fntastic wanted to put a little more work in outside the switch too.
Being top of Steam’s wishlists is a pretty incredible achievement as well. It’s beating out titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong, which have been gathering desire for half a decade at this point, and industry heavy hitters Starfield and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Plenty of other recognisable mega-sequels (STALKER 2, Kerbal Space Program 2) and long-running favs are beaten out as well.
Very confusing for a game with such odd trailers, no hands-on time, and which went dark for 6 months after announcing a release date, then delayed for another year. Previous game Propnight has been receiving updates regularly and clearly did very well on Steam. A developer like Fntastic managing to work on both games would be very impressive.
Equally so is how big a game this is for the publisher, Mytona. As well as working on Propnight with Fntastic, they have mostly published mobile games aimed at children. They’re based out of Singapore with a decade of games behind them – this is likely their big bet on entering wider gaming markets, so they would want to get it right.
We’ll keep an eye on it to see further developments. I’d recommend they go back dark for a while and come back with a playable build, something approaching final UI, and lots and lots of proof that they’re ever actually going to come out.
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