Open world zombie MMO The Day Before gets delayed until 2023 due to Unreal Engine 5 shift

The Day Before screenshot
(Image credit: Fntastic)

Upcoming zombie MMO The Day Before has been delayed until 2023 due to a switch to Unreal Engine 5. 

As revealed by IGN, The Day Before will now release on March 1, 2023, a good few months from its original June 21, 2022 release date. As highlighted in IGN’s story, The Day Before currently sits at the top of Steam’s most wishlisted games list, followed by the highly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong. 

In a statement provided to IGN, The Day Before developer Fntastic attributes the game’s delay to a switch to Unreal Engine 5. The statement also reads: "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," the developer revealed. If you weren’t aware, Fantastic’s upcoming game is an "open-world MMO survival set in a deadly, post-pandemic America that is overrun by flesh-hungry infected and survivors killing each other for food, weapons, and cars." Just like all good post-apocalyptic games are. 

Looking at the trailers for The Day Before on the game’s Steam page shows how high-end the visuals for this game already were. Following a switch to Unreal Engine 5, we can’t even begin to imagine how immersive and impressive the multiplayer survival game will be. 

It looks like the majority of developers will be making the switch to Unreal Engine 5 as time goes on with a new Tomb Raider game reportedly in development in the new engine as well as the recently announced Witcher 4, and Kingdom Hearts 4.  

Curious as to what you can look forward to (hopefully) playing this year? Take a look at our new games 2022 list. 

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.