Fntastic has announced its immediate closure, just days after releasing The Day Before to Overwhelmingly Negative reviews on Steam, and renewed allegations of scam-like behaviour. According to a post on Twitter / X, the decision was made as a necessity, as The Day Before has reportedly “failed financially” and the studio lacks the funds to continue.
Update: In addition, the studio has also pulled The Day Before from Steam, with new players no longer able to purchase the game.
While the sheer amount of reviews on Steam – over 19,000 as of writing – would suggest ample sales to support a small studio, it does appear a significant amount of players simply refunded the title after finding it “buggy” and “unsatisfying”.
Fntastic has apologised for not meeting player expectations in that regard, and claimed the studio had done “everything” in its power to release a sturdy game. It has admitted that, unfortunately, it miscalculated its capabilities, and was not able to deliver on its biggest promises.
“Today, we announce the closure of Fntastic studio. Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue,” the team announced. “All income received is being used to pay off debts to our partners.”
“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 … We worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweet, and tears into the game.”
Read: The Day Before launches to Overwhelmingly Negative reception
“We apologise if we didn’t meet your expectations. We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavour.”
While Fntastic had released several games prior to The Day Before, many of which were positively received, it appears the scope and expectation backing its latest title proved too difficult to overcome. Previously, the game was the most wishlisted on Steam, thanks to a viral trailer and early marketing promises, with Fntastic exposed to a much wider, more demanding audience following this reveal.
The studio attempted to lean into this newfound popularity with wild promises, but this only inspired skepticism around The Day Before, which was accused of being a scam and a fake game ahead of launch.
Unfortunately, the game’s overwhelmingly negative reception post-launch has now led to a premature judgement of failure by Fntastic, which will now close its doors after eight years in operation. For now, The Day Before‘s servers will remain operational, although Fntastic has described the future of this game and fellow release Propnight as “unknown.”
