The drama-filled saga behind certainly one of Steam’s most-anticipated video games of 2023 simply took its weirdest flip but. The Day Earlier than maker Fntastic introduced it can stop operations lower than every week after accusations of swindling gamers with an enormous bait-and-switch when it got here to the true nature of its The Final of Us-looking survival sport.
“At the moment, we announce the closure of the Fntastic studio,” started a press release tweeted by the studio on December 11. “Sadly, The Day Earlier than has failed financially, and we lack the funds to proceed. All earnings obtained is getting used to repay money owed to our companions.”
Fntastic wrote that it labored “tirelessly for 5 years” on the shooter with out ever taking cash from gamers by Early Entry, pre-orders, or crowdfunding. Whereas the way forward for The Day Earlier than 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 every part inside our energy, however sadly, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating video games is an extremely difficult endeavor.”
On the identical time its reducing its losses, Fntastic additionally appears to be denying accountability for the present mess surrounding The Day Earlier than. One among Steam’s most-wishlisted video games earlier this yr, 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 dwell.
What they shortly found, nonetheless, was that the Unreal Engine sport that shined in trailers was not the zombie survival MMO initially marketed, however quite a buggy and comparatively empty extraction shooter. The $40 launch was panned in 1000’s of Steam opinions with gamers calling it a “rip-off,” complaining of server points and damaged ranges, with many submitting refund requests.
The flash-in-the-pan launch, which left The Day Earlier than with a score of “largely unfavorable,” 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 quickly received the sport pulled from Steam amid a number of delays, gamers started to marvel if The Day Earlier than 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 consider in us.” “To our future participant who will dive into this sport on December 7: We made this for you in order that you’ll benefit from the sport and it turns into a celebration,” the studio wrote in a press release on the time. “Collectively, we are going to proceed bettering the sport and including content material.”
Simply 4 days later, that not appears to be the case.
Replace 12/11/2023 5:53 p.m. ET: The Day Earlier than has been faraway from Steam.
