Two years ago, developers Fntastic debuted their "open world survival MMO" The Day Before with a fairly lengthy trailer (which has since been scrubbed from their official YouTube channel, but it's been preserved by IGN and Gamespot). It shows a couple of players scavenging a post-pandemic American city slick with detailed lighting effects and reactive zombie hordes. There's crafting, cracked glass, and even a horror tease as a player peers around a corridor with a torch. It was an MMO that promised a mixture of The Last Of Us and The Division, and it quickly became the most wishlisted game on Steam.
Now, days after releasing into early access, developers Fntastic have shut down and you can't purchase the game anymore. Does it come as a surprise? Not really, considering the final product wasn't what they promised - not even close. Instead of an MMO, it was barely an extraction shooter. Consider my words below a record of a rancid time had across its short-lived early access release, then. A time when I would've rather handed a stinging nettle £40 to line my socks than spend another minute in this empty husk.