The Day Before – Another delay shortly before release after problems with Steam & copyright

Shortly before the planned release in March 2023, the survival MMO The Day Before was postponed again. The title, which is one of the most wanted games on Steam, has even disappeared from Valve’s platform.

We’ll tell you about the latest events.

The Day Before no longer available on Steam

If you are currently looking for The Day Before, you won’t find the title on your Steam wishlist or in the Steam Store.
According to an industry insider, developer Fntastic first released a statement saying that the removal was a bug, but deleted this statement a short time later and released a new statement.

In this statement, Fntastic and Mytona Games wrote that there were currently legal problems. These would be related to the fact that another party has the copyrights to the title “The Day Before”.
This is the reason why Steam has removed the game – and the developers themselves claim to have learned about this problem only a few days ago.

They are currently trying to find a solution, but have now postponed the release of The Day Before again – by several months, among other reasons. Nevertheless, they are trying to deliver the “best possible game” and the focus is still 100% on achieving this.
Of course, the planned gameplay release in January is also affected by this and they want to solve the current problems first before they devote themselves to it further.

However, they want to publish a video on the subject as soon as possible.

The new, targeted release date for The Day Before is now November 10, 2023.

Disappointment, mockery and questions

The reactions of the community were not long in coming and ranged from bewilderment and disappointment to pure mockery.

For example, the question was raised as to why one would even begin to develop a game without immediately checking the planned name and, if necessary, having it copyrighted – and how one could learn of such a thing so shortly before the release.
And of course, why you can’t publish the gameplay under a neutral title anyway.

Many see themselves confirmed in the assumption that The Day Before doesn’t even exist – or is in such an early state of development that it can’t be published at all.

The developers have not yet responded to the reactions.
On the official Discord of The Day Before, heated discussions were often accompanied by warnings, deletions and bans. However, it is not known whether these are official instructions or overworked moderators.

In fact, it is probably somehow not surprising that something “had” to go wrong before the planned release of The Day Before. The game’s development so far has been characterized by big promises, postponements and several controversies – which makes it all the more surprising how long the title has been able to maintain its popularity so far.

Controversies surrounding The Day Before

From clear-cut “gameplay” footage at the initial announcement in 2021, to a curiously announced “mega-event” which was also postponed and then was just a platform to promote another game from the studio, to reports of unpaid volunteers on the team, the game already didn’t get off to a good start.

This was followed by the postponement of the release to 2023, a long radio silence and then a curious video, which is supposed to represent the working conditions of the team and was actually just another advertisement for another project – an app – of the studio.

The “gameplay” shown at CES 2023 was then also more than disappointing and raised more questions than it answered – which then led us to the latest events like the big-announced, long gameplay video and the planned release that has now been postponed again.

What do you think about The Day Before? Did the developers blow their chances or didn’t even plan to release the game?
Or is it just a series of blunders that a young development studio ran into?
Let us know in the comments or on social media!