The Day Before studio shuts down one week after launch

The Day Before has had quite the year. The game, which was advertised as an MMO Zombie-Survival title, finally launched last week and players swiftly discovered that the game was nothing like what was previously promised. Now just days later, Fntastic is shutting down. 

The studio behind The Day Before, as well as a few other titles like Propnight, Fntastic, is shutting down. If you were thinking this would be a clean studio closure where games are removed from sale and refunded, then you would be wrong. Fntastic is using the funds generated by The Day Before's sales to pay off undisclosed debts.

Official statement. #fntastic #thedaybefore #propnight pic.twitter.com/AKcRHeIaIW

— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 11, 2023

The studio's statement tries to chalk this up to game development being harder than anticipated but I personally find this reasoning a little hard to believe. The Day Before was advertised for years with development updates, blog posts etc, all of which promised a fundamentally different game to what was shipped. It almost seems like The Day Before was released purely as an exist strategy to make one last chunk of money before calling everything off.

Fntastic claims that the futures of The Day Before and Propnight are “unknown”, but well, with the studio shutting down it seems pretty clear that neither game will continue to receive updates. Servers will remain operational though, so at least there is that.

KitGuru Says: If you picked up The Day Before on Steam, it might be worth applying for a refund regardless of playtime. 

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