It has been four days since the launch of the much, much-aligned zombie shooter The Day Before. Today, the developer, Fntastic, has announced it’s closing its doors.
Fntastic took to Twitter to formally declare what some folks may have already seen coming. The studio behind The Day Before writes 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 of The 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 behind The Day Before will shut down, but the game will stay online
The team behind Propnight says The Day Before will continue to linger for a while longer. Fntastic plans to keep the servers running for both the game and Propnight, 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 like Tarkov than the MMO Fntastic claimed it to be. The studio has also been allegedly removing early footage of the game from its YouTube that described The Day Before as an MMO shooter.
“It’s important to note that we didn’t take any money from the public during the development of The 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 Before has more than 18,000 reviews on Steam. It currently sits as “Mostly Negative.”
The Day Before is destined to keep lurching along, though its fate is likely sealed. It was revealed in 2021. After two years of delays and debates about it ever existing in the first place, it was only a mere four days of actual existence before its creator shut down.
I’ve rarely seen a situation quite like what we got with The 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.
