The Day Before is a multiplayer survival extraction shooter set in the fictional post-apocalyptic "New Fortune City" on the east coast of the United States, overrun by zombies following a deadly pandemic. Players wake up alone with no memory, scavenging abandoned vehicles, houses, and skyscrapers for resources, fighting infected and other players, and working toward rebuilding a survivor colony where they can trade loot and interact with others.

In practice, the game delivered almost none of what its trailers promised. What players actually received was a sparsely populated extraction shooter with barely fleshed-out quests, rampant bugs, and a world that felt hollow and lifeless compared to the cinematic open-world MMO shown in promotional material, closer in spirit to a budget asset-flip than anything resembling The Division or DayZ, which the marketing had evoked.

Players reported empty maps, server issues, frame rate problems, and a game that bore almost no resemblance to years of trailers and developer promises. The game lost 75% of its playerbase within days and was pulled from Steam entirely by December 11, just four days after launch.