What is The Day Before release date? When its first trailer dropped back in 2021, The Day Before blew people away with its gritty open-world set in the United States following a deadly pandemic. A survival MMO, the game saw players exploring the world, scavenging for resources in the abandoned metropolis of New York City and the lush countryside outside it, all while taking down (or hiding from) infected, zombie-like enemies, and other players alike.
The Day Before was then met with a series of delays due to claims of copyright infringement and faked footage, leading some to believe the game was a scam all along. It’s been a rocky road since the game initially released on December 7, 2023, as it has already been removed from Steam and the developer, Fntastic Studio, announced its closure.
The Day Before timeline
Originally scheduled for a release in June 2022, it was announced that the game would be shifting development to Unreal Engine 5 to improve the gameplay through a more advanced engine, pushing the release back in exchange for a complete experience.
The open-world game was delayed again in January 2023 following a trademark issue that saw the game pulled from Steam. It was later revealed that the trademark was, apparently, held by a “calendar app maker“. This had called into question whether or not The Day Before exists as a playable game, as the devs promised to show off “raw gameplay” right before the trademark issues popped up. Instead, Fntastic put out a bizarre statement where they refer to themselves as “‘90s action movie stars”, claiming that players will see the game on November 10, 2023.
The developer had previously doubled down on that November release date, but in a statement posted on November 1, 2023 it was revealed that the game would be delayed, again, to December 7, 2023. Alongside this, it was confirmed there would be no pre-order and the game’s price would be $39 at early access and $49 on full release.
There were also questions about gameplay trailers bearing a close resemblance to videos for Call of Duty and The Last of Us. In a statement, Fntastic said that “we all live in a time of disinformation and lack of fact-checking. Anyone can say anything for views, and everyone will believe it. Disinformation needs to be dealt with as it can harm not only us but also other indies and small/medium studios. It also has a mental impact on the members of such teams. After the release of The Day Before, we’ll think about how to help novice developers deal with fakes and allocate resources for this. Destroying is easy. Creating is difficult.”
When The Day Before did finally release on December 7, 2023, it released to mainly negative reviews due to various bugs and player frustrations around gameplay, including empty maps and server issues. Days later it lost 75% of players and landed on overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam.
After only a few days, you can no longer buy The Day Before on Steam and it won’t receive any updates, as it has been pulled from sale. Though at the time of writing this, the servers are still up and running. The developer, Fntastic, also announced the studio closure saying the game “failed financially” and has removed all content of the game including videos from both its YouTube and official site.
The Day Before refunds are available to all Steam players who request them as Fntastic are working with Valve and publisher Mytona, to provide them.
And that’s everything we know about The Day Before release date and timeline. Since you’re already here, why not check out our list of the best survival games? We also recommend giving our upcoming games guide a read to find out what great titles are set to launch.