Zombie shooters, from first-person to survival experiences, have seen a sudden surge in popularity recently, which has prompted many developers to jump onto the hype train. Although there are some fantastic games within the genre, others have fallen into some overused tropes and mechanics.
This doesn’t necessarily apply to the games in question, namely The Day Before and State of Decay 3, which seem to have some differentiating factors. However, the similar concepts mean that it would be a close battle between the two, and it looks that The Day Before might just beat Undead Labs’ offering to the punch.
Developer FNTASTIC’s The Day Before and Undead Lab’s State of Decay 3 are both third-person zombie shooters. While there are a lot of subtle nuances to both games, the broad strokes apply to both titles. The Day Before is an MMO zombie shooter which is confirmed to have live-service elements, while State of Decay 3 would be a hybrid experience comprising of both single-player mechanics as well as ones found in MMOs such as a persistent online connection and content additions.
State of Decay 3‘s announcement trailer shows a survivor trying to make it out alive in a cold hostile environment. The addition of fierce-looking deer zombies and the survivor’s stress level indicates a darker tone for the game, which could eventually be good for the game. The Day Before is also based around such feelings of despair and hopelessness, which is part of the reason for its The Last of Us comparisons. Its gameplay also shows a striking resemblance to the mechanics found in Naughty Dog’s offering, although on a much grander scale with the addition of open-world and MMO elements.
If fan-speculations for State of Decay 3 turn out to be true, it’d be clear that both games are trying to capture the same market. Hence, it’s clear that it could be a battle of release dates to find who gets to have the most market cap.
Neither of the games has a definitive release date for now, but there’s still some substantial information to make an educated guess on the matter. The Day Before is currently listed as Coming Soon on Steam and has a targeted release window of 2021. A very recent announcement and COVID-19’s impact on the industry as a whole has raised a lot of doubts, but The Day Before seems committed to delivering on its release date. Almost a month after its initial announcement trailer, The Day Before also teased a gameplay snippet recently which strengthens the original claim.
On the other hand, much isn’t known about State of Decay 3‘s release date. The cinematic announcement trailer and lack of information afterward point to a much later release date. Developer Undead Labs stated that the game was in the early pre-production stages when it was announced in July 2020. Considering the game to be a new direction for the franchise, it isn’t reasonable to expect it to come out soon. 2021 and by extension, 2022 seems to be packed with scheduled exclusives for the Xbox platforms which means that 2023 could very well be an opportune time for the game to shine the brightest.
It’s clear that The Day Before would probably release way sooner than State of Decay 3, but the wide time gaps and differences in available platforms could turn out to be great for both games.
The Day Before is currently in development for PC, planned for release in Q2 2021.
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