Fntastic, the studio created in Russia and headquartered in Singapore, has announced that it is shutting up shop, for good. The announcement comes less than a week after the launch of its game, The Day Before, on Steam as an Early Access game.
Fntastic posted the announcement via its official account on X, formerly Twitter. The message itself feels and sounds a little patronising but it acknowledges that The Day Before has “failed financially” and that the studio isn’t able to continue development of the game due to a lack of funds.
Official statement. #fntastic #thedaybefore #propnight pic.twitter.com/AKcRHeIaIW
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 11, 2023
“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 unfortuately, we don’t have the funding to continue the work.”
To say that The Day Before is a buggy, broken, hot mess would be severely undercutting it. First revealed in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the game’s reveal trailer showed potential, with promises of the inclusion of modern graphical features, such as NVIDIA’s RTX and DLSS technology. Sadly, delays, coupled with financial issues and the ongoing pandemic at the time, held back the development of the game and as mentioned, the “final” cut of the game made its way on to Steam’s Early Access in a sordid state.
The first minute of gameplay footage shows its unfinished state – player characters were clipping through walls, falling through the floor, quests and objectives were not marked in-game. The list goes on.
Since Fntastic’s announcement, Steam has taken The Day Before off the shelf, with the game no longer purchasable. At the same time, both Steam and the game’s publisher, Mytona, have said that it will be honouring refund requests from people who purchased the game.
