Steam's most wishlisted game, The Day Before, has received a delay as the open-world MMO undergoes a change in the game's engine. The game is being moved from its original release date of June 21, 2022, to nearly a year later on March 1, 2023.
Fntastic, the developers behind the highly anticipated title, revealed the news of the delay with IGN, where they also confirmed that the game would be moving over to the recently released Unreal Engine 5. The team also shared a statement with IGN about the change in both engine and release date, which says the following:
Millions of people have added The Day Before to their wishlist, making 'The Day Before' one of the most anticipated games in the world. Feeling and understanding the great responsibility that we face, with enormous gratitude in our hearts, we're pleased to announce that 'The Day Before' is switching to the new Unreal Engine 5 technology! The transition to a more advanced and adapted open worlds engine will make the gameplay of 'The Day Before' even more fantastic. In this regard, we inform you that the new release date of the game will be March 1st, 2023.
This announcement of the game moving over to Unreal Engine 5 continues the trend of games starting to use the new engine, following a string of other high-profile titles also deciding to move away from the engine used in previous games in favor of the cutting-edge engine. The most recent change was announced at the start of April with Crystal Dynamics' next Tomb Raider game switching out their in-house Foundation Engine for Unreal Engine 5. CD Projekt Red also announced in late March that they would be replacing their long-running, in-house REDengine to use Unreal Engine 5 in the start of a "new saga" for The Witcher series.
Out of all these titles, however, The Day Before's change is definitely the most shocking as where these previously mentioned games are still in the early stages of production and are using the new engine from the start of these projects, Fntastic has shared multiple videos and trailers for The Day Before, and the original release date was only a month away. Even before its delay, the game was already attempting to show off impressive visuals, including 4K raytracing in the game in a trailer four months ago.
The Day Before is a Massive Multiplayer Online game that sees players trying to survive in what remains of a post-pandemic America. The gameplay of the game that has been shown off demonstrates the title's third-person gunplay and vehicle traversal in a variety of locales and settings, from cities to the mountains, to a giant mall. Players will need to scavenge for resources, weapons, and supplies to get through this zombie-infected world. The game will also have community and base building features as they come across "survivor colonies" where they can meet up with other players.
The Day Before is now set to launch on March 1, 2023, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.