Days Before the Division

 Out of Touch, out of time; outta touch, outta time, oh...

Do ya'll remember The Division? Tactical MMO-esque looter shooter from yesteryear? I hear it's quite popular. Of course you know, and in fact so does the entire gaming industry, because that right there is a fairly successful venture which managed to make a tight community out of a lukewarm original entry. The Division 1 took some time to find it's feet, and the Division 2 really cemented that ground, but when I think about these games, I go back to before all of that all the way to the initial gameplay reveal trailer. I guess I'm a big believer in first impressions, because I always remember the first view I ever see of a game, and the feelings they made me feel. I remember when Bioshock Infinite's gameplay made me feel like I was looking at some exquisitely choreographed dance, Skyrim's felt like a vast oceans worth of robust fanaticism and the Division made me feel embarrassed. Yes, it made me ashamed to call myself a gamer in the way trailers of it's kin always do. Which is why it brings me no pleasure to say that The Day Before reminds me of the very initial Division reveal.

'The Day Before' is an imminently interesting name for a Sci-fi thriller, and yet somehow a depressingly generic one for a zombie game. (Guess which one this is) Maybe I'm just missing all the 'Dead' puns and find that these titles start sounding a little too pretentious when that's veered away from. 'Days gone', 'The Last of Us', 'The Day Before', barf; what's wrong with 'State of Decay'? That there's a clever pun which sounds great on the tongue. And now that I've bored you by talking too much about the title, let me tell you what makes this 'Not your typical Zombie game'. Ready? It's an MMO. That's right, multiplayer zombie slaying looter-shooter madness that's... well as generic as one could get for a game genre, but I guess no one's technically done that with zombies in the mix yet. Not sure why they would... but it's done now...

The busy metropolis of New York was the background for Division, and although some might call that one of the most overused cities in videogames, I suppose there's a certain charm in familiarity. The Day Before, on the otherhand, plays it's location surprisingly coy, meaning that it's either aware of the Division similarities and wants to dissuade them, or it's taking the 'anywhere, USA', approach to world building. (Still looks like Manhattan, though) Both seem to be third person squad-based affairs in which fans are supposed to be excited for the prospect of seeking standard clothing items like unmarked Baseball caps (Division) and gaudy cowboy hats. (The Day Before) But that's all situational or circumstantial, no? One game is about a pandemic wiping through pockets of the civilised world and opening the path to a breakdown of society, whilst the other is about... oh wait. But in all honesty, there's a much bigger reason why these games are one-and-the-same in my mind right now: The gameplay trailers

That trailer. Oh god, that reveal trailer. It's like the developers, FNTASTIC, studied everything cringeworthy about the Division's Reveal trailer and said 'oh- I want that!'. For those with the good luck to have selective memory loss; The Division's reveal trailer correctly highlighted the multiplayer aspect as the only really unique selling point of the business model at that point, the only problem being that they decided to market that through the worst method possible; simulated Multiplayer chat. My god, do I hate simulated Multiplayer chat. It's essentially these moments wherein advertising studios feel the need to hire actors to pretend to be players of this game, which at the moment is but a highly choreographed showcase, in a way to say "Hey, fellow gamers! This could be you! Recognise these words and the things they're saying? That's you! Buy the game, please buy the game..."  And let me be clear; it's a problem which needs to be stamped out of marketing.

It never, NEVER, works like they intend it too. Heck, through the very effort of trying to be relatable they instinctively repel their target audience. We don't need you to sell us the way we could be playing the game; you're supposed to be selling the damn game itself! Anthem did it in a confusing demonstration where we were unsure what was meant to be in-universe dialogue and what was player chat, (this was before we learned it was all bull anyway) Rainbow Six Siege did it in that hilariously nonsense 'mock-up' match which the team absolutely lied was a real multiplayer match. ("I got him!" Said the man who shot his pistol into the wall above the other player 6 times) And then finally there's The Division; the crowning glory of cringe-worthy audio. Where the players are simultaneously taking this as seriously as though they play this game everyday of their lives and have entered that terrifying stage of roleplaying as their avatars (A true low-point that any recovering MMO addict out there recognises) and also seemingly have never played this game before either. ("Argh, I can't get a shot" Said the man who spotted the shooter, yet decided to shoot the transformer under him for absolutely no reason whatsoever)

So to say that The Day Before enters that hall of decorated cringe, ain't exactly a compliment. "Alright, alright, alright, I have found a great cowboy hat", "Easy there Cowboy". Why do they do this to us? To themselves? Otherwise they've got a decently alright looking game that, whilst still seeming like a stich-job of several different genre's, still might be... functional, I guess. But all that good press is jettisoned in the eyes of someone like me, who just cannot stand to look at something so garish and out of touch at even the fundamental marketing level. Of course, I'm just sensitive to this sort of stuff, I'm sure everyone else can look past it and see what's on offer here, and that's- umm... well it's... what exactly on offer here?

We see that this is a game about scavenging and surviving in a world where you can interact dynamically with other players. But "be careful. Because not all players are friendly." Again, what? Have you literally never played online games before? No players are friendly, ever. The image of a online community of dubious relations in any setting that enables PVP is a myth; if players can kill each other, they will. The only game where I see that not being the case is Fallout 76, but that's because the reward for PVP is so infinitesimal and the cost so severe that it really isn't even worth it. There also appears to a dynamic weather system which I'm sure will make it to the final game. (My guess is it's got a 70% chance of getting scrapped.) And then there's the zombies. Almost an afterthought in the footage, hardly even mentioned. In a world post-Resident Evil 2 Remake they look almost comically uninteresting, aside from one cool shot of a room full of them immobile that the player spots in one scene. But again, my bet is that they won't act like that in game. So that's all this game really is, huh? Guess the graphics look alright too...

Go online and you'll see a fair number of pundits casting an appreciative eye over this footage and going "Huh, this looks alright" but I'm going to be the ass; it really doesn't. The idea of a multiplayer world with players and zombies has been done before in DayZ, 7 Days to day and even Unturned. All this trailer promises is to make that multiplayer seamless (kinda what DayZ does in a way) and bring a level of polish comparable to Ubisoft games. Well, honestly I'm not really impressed by this mock-up trailer and even if they could make a game which exactly resembles all this trailer promises (and I'm mostly sure they won't) I really wonder who will be in the market for this. No one is really clambering for a new Zombie game and the survival genre is oversaturated. Unless there's some amazing reveal about this game coming in the next few months, I have to say my interest for this game has died many days before it's even been given a release window. (See what I did there? Did ya?) And as always, I would love it if I'm miles off and this game turns out to be a masterpiece (honestly, some of the screenshots look 10x cooler than the trailer) but my gut really isn't feeling it on this one. Maybe yours is.