The Day Before: Release date, Early Access, gameplay, PvP, crafting, story, more

At first glance, The Day Before looks just like yet another zombie survival game, similar to dozens of games from the past decade.

Still, the game managed to attract huge attention when it was announced in January 2021, and the latest 14-minute gameplay trailer from a couple of days ago has already been seen more than two and a half million times.

What makes this game so special and why are people so intrigued by it?

Well, first of all, the quality and the look of the initial announcement trailer from January. The game looks amazingly polished, the visuals are beautiful, animations are fluid and responsive, the mood and the atmosphere are perfect, surroundings are rich with details and things to interact with. The quality of the whole package has really stood out when it was announced.

Combine that with the fact that the game offers what seems like a perfect combination of The Last of Us and The Division, featuring both PvE and PvP content, with exploration, looting, and crafting, fights against other people and zombies, urban and mountains areas...

It is easy to understand why this game looks so attractive both to fans of survival games and MMO fans. It looks almost like a dream come true for many.

What is The Day Before?

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The game is being described by its developers as an open-world MMO survival game. The game is set in a post-pandemic, apocalyptic America, and players are amongst the few survivors that will try to simply survive, find other survivors and rebuild the society.

We currently don't have too many details asides from what we've seen in the trailers and read in interviews, but we know that the game will include both PvP and PvE elements.

The Day Before PvP: How it works?

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Judging by what we've seen in the trailers, players will be able to encounter other players and attack them at any point while travelling through the map (similarly to how it works in games like Rust), or even work together with them if they come to an agreement.

It seems that the game offers complete freedom to players to choose if they want to cooperate or be aggressive towards each other.

The Day Before PvE: How it works?

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Currently, we don't know if there will be some story PvE content, like special events, missions, or "boss raids", but what we do know is that the world is full of "Infected" which are the game's zombies and they are roaming all around the world, searching for people to eat them.

• Read more: Fallout 76 Expeditions might return players to Washington, D.C.

Asides from other human players, these Infected will be the main enemies, and they will be attracted by the noise and the presence of humans, so you will always need to be careful.

Developers confirmed that they want Infected to "feel real" so they will not have some special classes or types, they will simply be regular people turned zombies.

The Day Before open world: How it works

(Picture: Fntastic)

The world of the game is huge and completely open, as there will be no loading screens. The focus is on the big city and its surroundings, but players will also be able to explore farms, vast meadows, smaller settlements, huge forests, and snow-capped mountains.

Players will be able to either walk or use various vehicles, and fuel for those vehicles will be one of the more important resources.

• Read more: Best survival games releasing in 2021

An interesting and innovative mechanic featured in the game is weather changes. Weather is unpredictable and can have various effects on gameplay. Storms, blizzards and cold weather can harm players, rains and fogs can hide you, etc. Of course, there is a day/night cycle as well.

The game will also have NPC characters that you can stumble upon, and they will give players various quests and help you understand the story better.

The game will have servers with a maximum number of players, but the exact number is yet to be revealed.

The Day Before Early Acces Release Date

The developers are yet to reveal any details about the release day and the start of Early Access, so for now the only information we have is that it's "coming soon".

Is The Day Before available on Xbox and PlayStation?

Currently, the game will only be available on PC via Steam, but the game will have full controller support if you choose to play with a gamepad.

We will add more details about the release date, Early Access, and gameplay as soon as they become available.