Can you create a private server in The Day Before?

Co-operative multiplayer has been touted as a major selling point of The Day Before ever since it was announced way back in 2021. So it’s safe to assume that you can play The Day Before with friends, right? But in The Day Before, nothing is safe.

So, let’s say you and your gaming buddies are all really into train wrecks and so you all buy The Day Before to bask in the warmth of its dumpster fire together. You boot up the game, you create your character, and you click “Select Server.” At this point you’ll be wondering, “How do we all play together?”

Can you play co-op with your friends in The Day Before?

The Server Browser screen in The Day Before offers you a number of choices, but unfortunately these choices do not include “Create private game” or “Join friend” or anything like that. You can choose from three regions, then from whichever of the servers in that region aren’t full. The game tells you the server’s name and roughly how full it is, but it doesn’t offer any way to connect with your friends at all.

The only way you can get onto the same The Day Before server as your friends is to coordinate with them outside of the game and agree to join the server with the same name. If that works—and I can tell you there are plenty of reasons why it might not—then the game does allow you to form squads with players who are on the same server.

So basically no, you can’t create a private server in The Day Before. I mean, maybe if you had enough money and technical knowhow, you might just about be able to set up your one server somehow. But please, don’t even try. It’s not worth it. 

You can play co-op with your friends in The Day Before but the game doesn’t really provide you with any tools to help you to do so. At the moment, all you can do is agree to join the same server in the same region at the same time and hope that you all get in. Right now, the day after launch (the day after The Day Before, if you will), this is going to be tricky, as every server is either full or nearly full. However, give it a few more days and I’m pretty sure those server populations will drop sharply, and soon you’ll easily be able to play The Day Before with your friends. And with no one else.