The Day Before developer threatens its return, blaming "the hate campaign" for the failure of its ill-fated 'survival MMO'
Jan. 24, 2024Fntastic wants you to keep in touch
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The Day Beforedeveloper has issued a statement attempting to counter alleged “misinformation” about the launch of the game and the closure of the studio, laying partial blame on “bloggers,” “content creators,” and a “hate campaign.”
In a post on Twitter, Fntastic says that it was providing “an official response” to “misinformation […] from supposedly anonymous sources” about the development of the game. It’s not clear what that misinformation is supposed to be, as recent headlines about The Day Before have focused on the closure of the game’s servers, andrumors that its studio leads have already started work on a new game.
Nevertheless, Fantastic has hit back at claims that it deceived players, claiming that “we didn’t take a penny from users,” and congratulating itself for “forcibly issuing refunds to those who did not request them,” likely referring to the game’s publisher,Mytona, auto-refunding all copies of the game. It also counters claims that it deceived investors, stating that Mytona and Fntastic “still have a great relationship” and that the success of Fntastic’s previous game, Propnight, helped finance the development of The Day Before.
The studio also suggests that claims made by “anonymous former employees” are inaccurate, casting aspersions about the very existence of these employees. The company claims to have “excellent relationships with the team,” praising itself for “timely salary payments,” among other things. It doesn’t mention the reports of the studio previouslyrelying on the work of unpaid volunteers.
The statement’s tone becomes increasingly combative as it progresses into discussing who may have profited from The Day Before. According to Fntastic, “certain bloggers made huge money by creating false content [to gain views and followers, exploiting the lack of information about the game’s development.” That’s likely a reference to the fact that The Day Before went through a significant period of radio silence before anine-month delay over copyright issuesin the wake ofa disappointing trailer. Fantastic claims that the actions of those bloggers “triggered a gold rush among content creators due to the game’s pre-release popularity.”
The studio also discusses claims that The Day Before didn’t live up to its own trailer. It claims that “we implemented everything shown in the trailers,” though “a few minor features” were disabled temporarily due to bugs. It doesn’t address suggestions from players that the gamewas not really the survival MMO it was billed as but was actually an extraction shooter.
Finally, the statement goes on to say that the game shut down because “the negative bias instilled by certain bloggers making money on hate affected perceptions of the game,” and that “the hate campaign […] inflicted significant damage” before The Day Before could recover from its launch, which sawseveral players unable to progress from the game’s first roomwithout encountering game-breaking bugs.
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Fantastic closes its statement by pointing to the success ofinflated “black market” salesof the game, and encourages readers to follow the studio on social media “to know what will happen next.”
Moving past the obviously antagonistic tone of the statement, it’s hard to get any firm answers from Fntastic. The studio appears to be trying to get ahead of reports from former employees, but at the time of writing, it’s not clear what those reports might be, other than a month-oldRussian language video on YouTubealleging crunch and a chaotic production schedule. The suggestion that players should follow Fntastic for information about future projects is particularly confusing given that the studioannounced its closure in the wake of The Day Before’s launch, but perhaps that has something to do with the fact that its leaders are understood to have moved on to a new project.
The bizarre history of The Day Before: From Steam’s most-anticipated MMO to a bland survival game that killed a studio.
I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
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