‘The Day Before’ developer announces surprise shut down despite finally releasing game

12 December, 2023

The Day Before

The Day Before developer Fntastic has announced a sudden shut down, just four days after the game entered early access.

In a statement shared on social media, the studio said that The Day Before had “failed financially” with the developer “lacking the funds” to continue.

The Day Before was originally due for release in June 2022, before being delayed until March 1, 2023. At the start of the year, Fntastic revealed that The Day Before would be delayed by eight months after the studio failed to trademark the game’s name. It was then delayed once more, before finally entering early access last week. It was available to purchase for $39.99 (£31.85) via Steam but quickly racked up over 10000 negative reviews while Fntastic asked players not to accuse them of “scamming”.

At one point, The Day Before was the most wishlisted game on Steam but quickly became the lowest rated game of all time on the platform.

“We really wanted to release new patches to reveal the full potential of the game, but unfortunately, we don’t have the funding to continue the work,” said Fntastic, confirming the shut down of the studio.

“All income received is being used to pay off debts to our partners,” they confirmed. ”It’s important to note that we didn’t take any money from the public during the development; there were no pre-orders or crowdfunding campaigns. We worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat and tears into the game.”

The statement went on to say the future of The Day Before and Fntastic’s other game Propnight is “unknown” but servers will stay operational for the time being. “We apologise if we didn’t meet your expectations. We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavour.”

Throughout the development of The Day Before, Fntastic had repeatedly told fans that the game wasn’t a scam, but were forced to defend the use of unpaid “volunteers” and were accused of ripping off Call Of Duty and The Last Of Us. The title was originally announced as a zombie survival MMO, but the game released was an extraction shooter.

Since the statement, The Day Before has become unable to purchase via Steam while trailers have been taken down from YouTube and Fntastic’s CEO Eduard Gotovtsev has seemingly left social media.

In other news, LE SSERAFIM member Sakura has opened up about her love for gaming, with Animal Crossing top of her list.

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