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The Day Before parody cost $1,500 to make, looks better than real game

The Day Before is gone forever, but as the Fntastic would-be MMO departs, a new parody emerges that looks better, and cost $1,500 to build.

The Day Before parody: A character from Fntastic zombie survival game The Day Before

The Day Before is gone, finished, unlikely to ever return. As the zombie shooter billed as an MMO is finally switched off and all of The Day Before servers go dead, a new champion emerges in its place. Developed by one person for just $1,500, a highly convincing, much more professional looking version of The Day Before is now available for your viewing pleasure. Designed as a parody of Fntastic’s initial trailers, the aptly named ‘The Day After’ somehow looks better than the real thing.

The Day Before has already secured a place in gaming history. Initially positioned as an MMO, it launched as a zombie survival game closer in spirit to The Division. But that, of course, was the least of its problems. Buggy, incomplete, inaccessible, and seemingly an extremely different game compared to its earliest trailers, The Day Before was quickly pulled from Steam. Everyone got a refund. The servers were shut down. 2023 ended with one of the greatest gaming controversies in recent memory.

Fntastic says it was all because of a “hate campaign” started by bloggers. Either way, The Day Before partially lives on now via a parody project from solo developer ‘Crimson.’ With $1,500 / £1,176 of pre-made assets, 300 hours of careful work, and a lot of dedication, Crimson has developed a working prototype of a zombie survival shooter called The Day After. Check it out in the video below:

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The weather is dynamic, the atmosphere is rich, the inventory system works well, and the zombies actually die. Crimson doesn’t plan to launch this current build to the public, as the developer is still busy creating top-down shooter Suit For Hire and the superb-looking cyberpunk roguelite Ronin 2072, both of which you can find right here.

Crimson says however that they had “tons of fun” building The Day After, and that they may begin work on a co-op zombie survival game after the completion of their current projects. Perhaps The Day Before – at least in some form – could return after all.

If you were looking forward to The Day Before, and now there’s a massively multiplayer gap in your life, check out the best MMOs. Or you can get ahead with the best upcoming PC games arriving in 2024.

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