Steam’s most wishlisted - and controversial - game The Day Before will release next month, after another delay

Will it ever be The Day Of for much-delayed and gossip-laden zombie MMO The Day Before? We’ll apparently find out in just over a month, as The Day Before’s release date has now been announced as December 5th following yet another slide back from its previous date of November 10th. That’s after developers Fntastic previously promised that there wouldn’t be any more delays - something its latest ‘Final Trailer’ presumably vows once again.

It’s the latest in a series of delays for the open-world survival game that has sat at the top of Steam’s most-wishlisted ranking - overtaking the likes of Starfield on the way - since blowing up last year. Along the way, it’s caused no shortage of controversy, including accusations of being a vapourware scam - something that Fntastic aimed to head off with a look at gameplay earlier this year - being worked on by dozens of unpaid volunteers (along with full-time paid staff, which the devs also call “volunteers”) and vanishing from Steam earlier this year after a claimed trademark dispute.

For those keeping track, The Day Before was originally announced in early 2021 with a June 2022 release date, which then slipped back to March 2023 - something attributed to shifting the game over to use Unreal Engine 5. This January, it was further pushed back to November over those apparent trademark concerns - put down to failing to spot an existing trademark for a separate The Day Before - with the promise of an upcoming beta test, which will now apparently be for those who worked on the game already.

The game will launch into Early Access release via Steam on December 10th, as announced in The Day Before’s ‘Final Trailer’. The trailer does indeed appear to show gameplay, ranging from a glimpse at its character creator and inventory management while looting the post-apocalyptic open world for supplies and resources.

The trailer also shows off The Day Before’s armoury of weapons, said to each have unique characteristics and be modifiable in-game with “maximum realism” in mind. You’ll be able to use said weapons to deal with the threat of both the zombie-like infected and other players, who might try to pick you off to nick your stuff.

Gathering resources and completing community tasks will help you to earn the world’s currency of Woodbury coins, which can be spent on ammo, weapons, gear, food and more. Some of that “more” includes cars - with sports cars shown whizzing around the empty streets like a bizarre GTA V Undead Nightmare - and houses, with the ability to furnish your own personal ranch with furniture and whatnot.

Elsewhere in the trailer, you’ll apparently be able to work out in a gym and relax in a spa between braving the horrors of an undead world and fighting with your fellow human survivors.

The Day Before’s Steam page has since resurfaced, detailing that its Early Access run is expected to last between six and eight months before a full release. (Given the experience of getting to this point, we’ll see about that.) The game will cost $39 in Early Access, before increasing by ten dollars for its complete launch.

We also know what we’ll need to run it, with an i5-8400 and GTX 1060 for minimum specs and i7-8700 (3.2Ghz) and 1080 Ti recommended (or the AMD equivalents of each). It’ll take up 55GB of your drive, which perhaps seems… small? for an open-world game in 2023 promising so much. Still, nice to have a game in the double-digit GBs still.

We’ll find out whether The Day Before can truly live up to its hype on December 7th. You know, if it’s actually out then.