The Day Before Developer FNTASTIC Is Shutting Its Doors Less Than A Week After Launch

Well that's fntastic, isn't it?

Avatar photoBy Kieron Verbrugge

In news that I’m sure most folks could have seen coming, Fntastic has announced its closure just days after launching its long-delayed and widely criticised The Day Before in “early access.”

The studio had already drawn ire from players who purchased the game and found it to be severely undercooked and barely matching the genre let alone features that Fntastic had been promising for years prior. Now, any hope of updates is over and the game itself can no longer be purchased on Steam.

Given Fntastic’s history with its controversial “volunteer” employment structure (WellPlayed has a great write-up about that here), the dozens of videos of the game during development that look nothing like what was eventually delivered, and the fact that it had indicated that The Day Before would be a full release until just a month before launch when it suddenly switched to an Early Access tactic, it’s naturally been quite difficult for vocal players and the public to view this situation with anything but suspicion.

For its part though, Fntastic issued the following statement:

“Today, we announce the closure of Fntastic studio. Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds
to continue. 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.

“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. We worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into the game.

“At the moment, the future of The Day Before and Propnight is unknown, but the servers will remain operational.

“We apologize 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 endeavor.

“We’re grateful to everyone who supported us during these difficult years. It’s been a fantastic journey over the past eight
years:

  • 2015: Opening of the studio
  • 2017: Release of The Wild Eight
  • 2018: Release of Dead Dozen
  • 2018: Release of Radiant One
  • 2021: Release of Propnight
  • 2023: Release of The Day Before”

Adding further fuel to the fire that this has all been an impressively long con, the studio’s CEO Eduard Gotovtsev has disappeared from X following this most recent development: