The horror show that was the launch of The Day Before has reached a final, bleak conclusion with the game being removed from Steam, refunds being offered to all players, and the studio responsible shutting down.
Just days after the game hit the iceberg as the devs played on promising to sort out all the issues with a number of patches, a statement was posted on X saying that Fntastic was no more and there was no funding to continue.
The statement reads:
“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.
Official statement. #fntastic #thedaybefore #propnight pic.twitter.com/AKcRHeIaIW
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 11, 2023
“Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavor”
“At the moment, the future of The Day Before and Propnight is unknown, but servers will stay operational. 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.”
From a development cycle that was beset by difficulties from the off, the sudden announcement of the game’s release date, albeit in Early Access, to the well-publicized problems at launch that saw the game slaughtered via Steam reviews, it was never going to end well.
— Mytona (@mytona_official) December 11, 2023
Now, publisher Mytona has removed the game from the Steam shelves and said it is working with Steam to provide refunds to anybody who bought the game in what will go down as one of gaming’s most unmitigated disaster stories. For context, Steam refunds are usually only granted to players who have less than two hours of play time in a game.
The Day Before has been Steam’s second most-wish-listed game since it was announced almost three years ago, but in recent times had become a meme as nobody expected it to ever see the light of day. It did at least make it into the sunlight, but only for the tiniest amount of time.
