It has been four days since the launch of the much,much-aligned zombie shooterThe Day Before. Today, the developer, Fntastic,has announcedit’s closing its doors.
Fntastic took to Twitter to formally declare what some folks may havealready seen coming. The studio behindThe Day Beforewrites that the game “has failed financially,” and that it “lacks the funds” to keep the rapidly sinking ship afloat. Fntastic claims in the note that it will use the income received from game sales to pay off debts to its partners.
“We invested all our efforts, resources, and man-hours into the development ofThe Day Before, which was our first huge game,” the company wrote in its letter. “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.”
Studio behindThe Day Beforewill shut down, but the game will stay online
The team behindPropnightsaysThe Day Beforewill continue to linger for a while longer. Fntastic plans to keep the servers running for both the game andPropnight, though the future of both is “unknown.”
“We apologize if we didn’t meet your expectations,” Fntastic continued. “We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavor.”
Since the game’s launch on December 7, both it and Fntastic have been under fire from players and the media.The Day Before‘s launch has been nothing short of disastrous, as footage of bugs and boring gameplay filled the digital landscape. Our own Steven Mills struggled to even play the game during its launch, something many other players had in common.
Players have also lobbed criticism at the studio, saying that the game is more representative of an extraction shooter likeTarkovthan the MMO Fntastic claimed it to be. The studio has also beenallegedly removing early footageof the game from its YouTube that describedThe Day Beforeas an MMO shooter.
“It’s important to note that we didn’t take any money from the public during the development ofThe Day Before; there were no pre-orders or crowdfunding campaigns,” the studio wrote. “We worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into the game.”
The Day Beforehas more than 18,000 reviewson Steam. It currently sits as “Mostly Negative.”
The Day Beforeis destined to keep lurching along, though its fate is likely sealed. It was revealed in 2021. After two years ofdelays and debatesabout it ever existing in the first place, it was only a mere four days ofactualexistence before its creator shut down.
I’ve rarely seen a situation quite like what we got withThe Day Before.At least, not at this scale. There’s a chance another studio could swoop in and pick the game up, but at this point it’s probably safe to say its headed for the grave. And maybe that’ll be a mercy.
