10 Recent Video Games Sent Out To Die

2. The Day Before

the day before game
Fntastic

While many players will remember 2023 for stunning titles like Baldur's Gate 3, Alan Wake II and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, just as many will associate it with one game and one game only: The Day Before. 

The mecca of everything wrong with misleading pre-release trailers, dodgy promises and unwieldily hype, Fntastic's survival game (or is it an extraction shooter? a live service?) had an unprecedented release-to-killed turnaround, with the studio behind it shutting down just five days after the The Day Before's launch. 

So, what happened? Well, what initially was Steam's most wishlisted game following a tantalising reveal trailer soon came under constant scrutiny from burned fans who wondered whether it even existed at all. With constant delays, zero communication, and ever changing goalposts in regards to what the game was even going to be, that early hype quickly evaporated as The Day Before was hit with claims that it was nothing more than a scam. 

Finally releasing at the end of 2023, fans got to play the game they had such high hopes for - and it was even worse than they could have imagined. A barebones extraction shooter with glitches that would make Assassin's Creed: Unity blush, the last minute Early Access release saw a huge chunk of players jump in to sate their curiosity... only for literally 90% of them to call it quits when they saw how rubbish the release was. 

It was nothing compared to the quality promised by that first trailer, and will no doubt be remembered as one of the most disappointing games of all time.

Seriously, I can't do the travesty justice in this list, but SkillUp has an excellent, exhaustive breakdown of everything that went wrong with this garbage fire that you should definitely check out.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.