The drama-filled saga behind one among Steam’s most-anticipated video games of 2023 simply took its weirdest flip but. The Day Before maker Fntastic introduced it is going to stop operations lower than per week after accusations of swindling gamers with an enormous bait-and-switch when it got here to the true nature of its The Last of Us-looking survival recreation.
“Today, we announce the closure of the Fntastic studio,” began a statement tweeted by the studio on December 11. “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.”
Fntastic wrote that it labored “tirelessly for five years” on the shooter with out ever taking cash from gamers via Early Access, pre-orders, or crowdfunding. While the way forward for The Day Before and the studio’s different on-line video games is “unknown,” the servers will apparently stay operational in the intervening time.
“We apologize if we didn’t meet your expectations,” the assertion continued. “We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavor.”
At the identical time its reducing its losses, Fntastic additionally appears to be denying accountability for the present mess surrounding The Day Before. One of Steam’s most-wishlisted video games earlier this 12 months, gamers flocked to the comparatively unknown launch which hit over 400,000 viewers on Twitch and 30,000 concurrent gamers on PC on its first day stay.
What they rapidly found, nevertheless, was that the Unreal Engine recreation that shined in trailers was not the zombie survival MMO initially marketed, however reasonably a buggy and comparatively empty extraction shooter. The $40 launch was panned in hundreds of Steam critiques with gamers calling it a “scam,” complaining of server points and damaged ranges, with many submitting refund requests.
The flash-in-the-pan launch, which left The Day Before with a ranking of “mostly negative,” adopted months of debate about whether or not the sport was even actual. After accusations of exploiting voluntary labor, deceptive followers with plagiarized trailers and asset flips, and a authorized dispute that briefly bought the sport pulled from Steam amid a number of delays, gamers started to surprise if The Day Before was all smoke and mirrors. It may need been higher if it had been.
Fntastic rejected hypothesis impugning its integrity and motives final week, crticizing those that “didn’t believe in us.” “To our future player who will dive into this game on December 7: We made this for you so that you will enjoy the game and it becomes a celebration,” the studio wrote in an announcement on the time. “Together, we will continue improving the game and adding content.”
Just 4 days later, that now not appears to be the case.
Update 12/11/2023 5:53 p.m. ET: The Day Before has been faraway from Steam.
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