The Day Before developer Fntastic has announced plans for a major return, despite the controversy surrounding the studio. For those unfamiliar, Fntastic was behind the disastrous launch of The Day Before, a title which was previously one of the most-wishlisted games on Steam, before its launch revealed many of its promised features were over-exaggerated or not delivered at all.
After much hype around the game’s release, it was soon labelled a “scam” by early players. They alleged it barely had MMO gameplay at all, and it was instead a “bare bones” and glitch-filled looter-shooter with extraction-style gameplay.
The Day Before swiftly hit an Overwhelmingly Negative rating on Steam, and just a few days after launching, Fntastic pulled the game from sale, refunded players, and announced it, along with the studio, would shut down.
“Today, we announce the closure of Fntastic studio. Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue,” the team said at the time. “We invested all our efforts, resources, and man-hours into the development of The Day Before, which was our first huge game. 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.”
Just short of a year later, Fntastic has now announced a return, with plans to fully recover the studio and continue to work on new games.
Read: The Day Before studio Fntastic announces closure
In a post on X, the studio claimed that everyone deserves a second chance. It has apologised to players who were disappointed by the disastrous launch of The Day Before, and shared its next steps – which include a Kickstarter campaign for its next game, Escape Factory.
“After the closure, we reflected on our past mistakes and initiated significant internal changes to drive radical improvement,” Fntastic said on its website. “We’ve discontinued the practice of involving external volunteers and are now fully committed to a more professional approach. Honesty, transparency, and community engagement have become our top priorities.”
It has further pledged to “honest marketing” as well as providing supporters with development progress reports, beta tests, and other assurances that it will not make the same mistakes again. It has also claimed it can’t continue without the support of its community – and if the Kickstarter for Escape Factory fails, it will not be able to continue developing games.
As of writing, five hours after launch, this Kickstarter has raised just AUD $318 of its AUD $22,692 goal. While there are 29 days to go in the campaign, if responses to Fntastic’s announcement are anything to go by, it will likely struggle to hit even this meagre goal.
Over on X, commenters familiar with The Day Before and Fntastic’s previous game releases have reacted as you might expect. One of the most-liked comments on the recovery post is simply very loud laughter, and renewed allegations of scam-like behaviour. Other commenters have reassured Fntastic that the gaming community “didn’t forget” what happened with The Day Before.
To the studio’s credit, it’s working to address each and every response, providing apologies and reassurances. The reality is it will face an incredibly tough battle to win back players after its missteps, and in a tight economy, players would likely much rather support studios with a proven track record of honesty and reliability.
