Published Aug 6, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT
Bruno Yonezawa is a Gaming Senior Writer for Screen Rant. He's been practicing professional journalism for over 10 years, and is also a communications specialist. He's played games all his life and turned that passionate hobby into a passionate career, in an industry where he's worked as a writer, editor, analyst, and more.
A new zombie-centered survival game that mixes elements from The Walking Dead and the popular Project Zomboid is already looking amazing, and you won’t have to wait too long before you start playing it. Zombie franchises are still quite beloved by players, despite the oversaturation of releases that have hit the industry over the past decade or so. Fans are still hooked on Robert Kirkman’s franchise, for example, and are eagerly waiting for a brand-new The Walking Dead adventure, which is set to be released pretty soon.
If you don’t want to wait that long or are looking for something outside of that IP, know that a new option is right around the corner. A new open-world zombie survival game will be released on Steam next month, and it will feature gameplay elements that you’ll recognize from some of the best in the genre, like Project Zomboid, as well as the general atmosphere and more realistic vibes it seems to inherit from shows like The Walking Dead.
Is This Our New The Day Before?
The upcoming zombie survival game on Steam is called The Dead We Knew: Open World Survival. Developed and published by MAY19 STUDIO, the game is set in a post-apocalyptic world that was overrun by the undead. As an entry in the genre, you’ll be exploring this world looking for resources, building a reliable shelter, producing food, and more, all while trying to survive alone or with friends against the onslaught of zombies and other hostile living survivors who will fight you for territory and the very resources you create or loot.
Set between an urban landscape and the wilds, the gameplay loop seems to draw a lot from Project Zomboid, though without the top-down retro-like visuals. The Dead We Knew: Open World Survival looks extremely promising right now, but the hype that’s forming around it is reminiscent of The Day Before, a hugely anticipated title that was a total flop – so much so that it has a 13% positive review status on Steam, showing just how much it disappointed players.
The Dead We Knew Releases Soon
Of course, how good a game looks doesn’t mean it’s going to follow the history set by an entirely different game. In fact, The Dead We Knew: Open World Survival could have very well learned from the mistakes of The Day Before during its development process, or simply watched the tragedy from afar. Luckily, you won’t have to wait much longer, as The Dead We Knew: Open World Survival is scheduled for release on September 17.
The new survival game on Steam has the benefit of being clearly inspired by reliable franchises and, seemingly, being very clear about what players will be able to do. It’s unknown exactly what the scope of the game is, but having Open World Survival in its title hints at a massive area to explore, and fans of The Walking Dead and Project Zomboid may enjoy it.
Brand Valve
Original Release Date September 12, 2003
English (US) ·