The Day Before was only recently announced, but it is still certainly one of the most highly-anticipated titles releasing this year. Often described as The Division meets The Last of Us, The Day Before has already piqued the interest of many fans, but controversies surrounding its release dates have somewhat dampened the hype.
The Day Before was announced with a Steam listing of a Q2 2021 release date, which instilled a lot of confidence in fans especially at a time when seeing delays was commonplace. Considering that it's now highly unlikely that the game would meet its projected release date, it might just be best to the Steam Early Access route.
Steam Early Access Has Worked Wonders For Valheim and Many Others
Steam's Early Access program allows developers to put beta versions of the game on sale at Valve's platform, which then allows players to purchase the game in what is essentially an unfinished state. Players can report bugs, glitches, and balancing issues with the game following which the game should ideally be patched. While the platform is still relatively unpopular with narrative-driven single-player games, it has done wonders for multiplayer-centric titles.
Valheim is certainly one of the most popular examples of how Steam Early Access can help the developer generate enormous amounts of feedback and hype simultaneously. Feedback generated can also be utilized to decide the future direction of the game and allows developers ample amounts of time to iron out any and all issues before the full game releases on Steam as well as other platforms.
Iron Gate Studios' survival sandbox has reached great heights since the game released in early access earlier this year, constantly topping Steam sales charts weeks after weeks. Many others including the likes of Rust, Subnautica, and DayZ are breakout successes that originated from Steam Early Access. Given that The Day Before is easily FNTASTIC's most ambitious project to date, it makes sense to involve the community in the development process. There's also the fact that The Day Before is an MMO, a genre that thrives on community involvement and feedback.
Steam Early Access Might Be A Double-Edged Sword For The Day Before
While there's been an ample amount of breakout successes that originated from the Steam Early Access program, the program itself has also carved out a pretty negative reputation for itself. Many games both big and small in scale are known to be stuck in development limbo after some time, as updates become infrequent and distance grows between the developers and the community.
Valve is still actively working on its platform to mitigate such issues, but such problems do persist at an alarming rate. While nothing can be definitively said about The Day Before's fate should it go the Early Access route, most signs point towards it following in the footsteps of Valheim and other successes owing to its popularity. Of course, developer FNTASTIC knows what's best, and sticking by its plans might just be for the best.
The Day Before is currently in development for PC, and it's set to release in Q2 2021.