Shocking climax to a controversial game: Development of The Day Before is discontinued, developer Fntastic has to close down
Update from December 12, 2023: It goes blow by blow. After developer studio Fntastic announced the closure and development stop of The Day Before, sales of the game, which has been overshadowed by all kinds of scandals, have now been stopped on Steam.
Refunds announced, studio claims to have earned nothing: According to a new post on X (formerly Twitter) by Fntastic, they are currently working with Steam to offer buyers a refund regardless of the amount of game time invested. According to the studio itself, it has not received any money from the sales of The Day Before and will no longer do so.
thedaybefore fntastic mytona
Answer to those who ask for a refund. Mytona and we’re currently working with Steam to allow refunds for any player who chooses to request one, regardless of game time. Fntastic received $0 and will receive nothing from The Day Before sales.– Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 12, 2023
Game and studio disappear from the scene: A few hours after the official end, The Day Before can no longer be purchased. And elsewhere, the minds behind the MMO the extraction shooter seem to be in quite a hurry to disappear from the limelight.
Journalist Nick Calandra has noticed that the CEO of Fntastic has already deleted his profile on X (formerly Twitter). The studio’s official website is also just an empty shell, with the closure announcement as its only content. And the YouTube channel of Fntastic? According to it, there was apparently never a game called The Day Before, because there are no more trailers there.
Original news from December 11, 2023: The scandal surrounding the highly controversial survival shooter has reached its sad climax: developer studio Fntastic has announced its closure just five days after the game’s release. In an official press release, the studio stated that The Day Before had failed financially and that they lacked the necessary funds to continue.
Read the full statement from the developers here:
Today we are announcing the closure of Fntastic Studio. Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially and we do not have the funds to continue. All proceeds will be used to pay off debts to our partners
We put all our efforts, resources and man-hours into the development of The Day Before, which was our first big game. We really wanted to release new patches to realize the full potential of the game, but unfortunately we don’t have the funds to continue the work.
It’s important to mention that we didn’t accept any money from the public during the development of The Day Before; there were no pre-orders or crowdfunding campaigns.
We have worked tirelessly for five years and put our blood, sweat and tears into the game. At the moment, the future of The Day Before and Propnight is still uncertain, but the servers will continue to operate.
We apologize if we have not met your expectations. We did everything we could, but unfortunately we misjudged our capabilities. Developing games is an incredibly challenging endeavor
We are grateful to everyone who has supported us during these difficult years. It has been a fantastic journey over the last eight years.
Official statement. fntastic thedaybefore propnight pic.twitter.com/AKcRHeIaIaW
– Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 11, 2023
The Day Before was highly anticipated as Fntastic’s first major project, but already had to deal with a lot of controversy in the run-up to it:
- Originally planned for June 2022, the game was first postponed to March 2023 and then to November 2023. At the time, the developers cited the switch to Unreal Engine 5 as the reason for the delay.
- No real gameplay of the game was shown until shortly before the originally planned release, which raised massive doubts about the existence of the game and the quality of the gameplay shown.
- One scandal that caused a stir was the revelation of the working conditions at Fntastic. It came to light that many of the studio’s employees were described as volunteers and were not paid.
- In addition, The Day Before suddenly disappeared from Steam in January 2023, leading to further speculation. The reason for this was a legal dispute over the name, which resulted in the game being removed from the platform.
- Finally, the game faced accusations of stealing assets from other games.
What happens now? Fntastic has not yet commented on what exactly will happen with The Day Before. The servers will remain online for the time being, but you should not expect any further updates for the completely buggy game.
It is also not known whether buyers can now request a full refund from Steam. We will keep you up to date as soon as we have more information.
What do you think about the sudden closure of Fntastic Studio? Discuss with us in the comments
