A game pretending to be The Day Before has appeared on Steam, and I'm 99% sure it's a scam

Like a zombie you thought you shot in the head but actually just clipped in the thorax, survival game fiasco The Day Before is still twitching unpleasantly in the corner. Except, in this case, it's not really The Day Before at all, but rather a game that for some reason is pretending to be The Day Before, and it's not really a game at all. Allow me to explain.

A quick recap of the events so far: After much hype and several delays, The Day Before launched on Steam in December 2023, and it was a disaster—so bad that just days after release, sales were halted and developer Fntastic closed its doors. Refunds were offered and feeble defenses made, but the studio bosses basically fell off the face of the Earth and it eventually came to light that the whole thing was an even bigger goat rodeo behind the scenes than anyone could have guessed.

All told, it was very weird, but this is even weirder. A listing for another game calling itself The Day Before has now appeared on Steam (via PCGamesN), which at first glance looks the same as the original, including the names of the developer and publisher. But dig a little deeper and it quickly becomes clear that it's kind of a half-assed copy—a quick-and-dirty knockoff that's not meant to stand up to close scrutiny.

For clarity, this is the «real» Steam listing for The Day Before.

And this is the fake.

Switch over to SteamDB and you'll see the listing for the «new» Day Before has a long and very sketchy history. Prior to taking the name of The Day Before, it briefly carried the title GTA Brasil, «the next chapter of the Grand Theft Auto saga… where the sun-soaked beaches meet the pulsating rhythm of samba.»

That title was only put into place three days ago: Prior to that, it was known as Carrot the Cat, a «cartoony platformer [that] offers vibrant stylized graphics, challenging levels, and endless charm.» Carrot the Cat is the title that actually appears at the top of the SteamDB listing, even though everything else has been