The Day Before Devs Need to Change Title; New One Also has a Serious Problem
Survival MMO game The Day Before has been unable to avoid controversy since its first announcements. We learned details of the developers' decision to postpone its release, and facts that have yet to turn into additional complications.
Game developers have a lot more obstacles on their way from idea to product than one might think. Legal nuances alone can become a huge problem, as in the case of a certain highly anticipated MMO set in the world of the zombie apocalypse. "Certain" because it turned out that studio Fntastic can no longer use the title it previously used.
The origins of The Day Before
In 2021, the survival MMO game The Day Before was announced, which from the very beginning attracted the attention of the community of fans of the genre with its dark atmosphere, ambitious promises of complex gameplay and ambient interactivity.
Quite quickly, however, the title lived to see considerable controversy, which escalated to the point that some Internet users began to doubt the very existence of the game. This January, TDB disappeared from Steam, and the title's release (originally announced back in 2021) was moved to November 10, 2023.
Back then, we already learned that the reason for the game's disappearance from Steam was supposed to be its title. Now, however, we have learned the full context of the situation.
Confusion over the game's name at the halfway point of production
The eponymous The Day Before, referring to an event in the game's world, which was supposed to be an outbreak of the zombie virus, was supposed to be chosen by Fntastic members as early as 2019, in the pre-production phase. The problem is that the same name was decided on by the creator of a certain virtual calendar back in 2010..
The owner of the Korean app TheDayBefore, whose name was legally registered under the trademark, was said to have intervened, preventing further advertising and future distribution of the game.
In the media world, this is not an isolated case. Like in other similar situations, Fnastic had to find a new title for its game. As reported by WellPlayed, based on the trademark registry, the choice was to go with the name DayWorld.
A still pending application for the rights to a new title was submitted earlier this month by Myton Fnastic, a newly formed studio resulting from the merger of Fnastic and publisher Myton.
Does this mean that The Day Before can safely return to Steam as DayWorld? Not necessarily.
As absurd as it may sound, Internet users have noticed that the new name of the game has also been used before. DayWorld is also a trilogy of sci-fi novels by Philip Jose Farmer, the first part of which was published back in 1985..
However, we will have to wait for further developments until the game developers' application is processed or a new comment from them appears. We can only hope that these complications will not affect the release date once again.
