The developer of The Day Before, Steam's most hated game, is shutting down just days after launch
It's been a long time since we've seen a fall from grace quite so spectacular as The Day Before. The latest twist in that saga comes with today's news that developer Fntastic is shutting down just days after the game finally launched in early access.
This survival zombie shooter first came on gamers' radars a couple years ago with an impressive first trailer. Despite few people having heard of Russian developer Fntastic, the trailer built a huge amount of buzz, and The Day Before quickly became one of the most wishlisted games on Steam of all time. Equally quickly, however, more discerning gamers started questioning whether the trailer was showing actual gameplay or if it was all nonsense.
After two more years of drama and delays, The Day Before finally launched in early access just last week. And surprise! It seems that trailer was, in fact, mostly nonsense. Fntastic had promised an open-world MMO experience, but what was delivered was a much smaller-scale extraction game—one with servers that seemed to barely function and gameplay that felt extremely rough compared to the competition.
Though it has only been available in early access for a few days now, The Day Before has quickly amassed over seventeen thousand negative user reviews on Steam. From one of the most wishlisted games on the platform to one of the most negatively reviewed—that's a hell of a fall.
Fntastic's story of hubris wasn't quite done there, though. Today the developer posted a statement on Twitter announcing that the studio is being shut down. "Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue," the statement read. It also stated that servers would stay active for The Day Before (as well as the developer's previous game, Propnight), but that the game's future beyond that is unknown.
Predicting the criticism they would inevitably receive, the statement also made sure to mention that the developer "didn't take any money from the public during the development of The Day Before; there were no pre-orders or crowdfunding campaigns." That's true, though it also seems noteworthy that Fntastic just spent the past few days selling early access to the game for a hefty $39.99.
"We apologize if we didn't meet your expectations," Fntastic wrote. "We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavor."
As of the time of writing, the ability to purchase The Day Before has been removed from Steam. If you're curious for more details on just how bad this game is, you can read impressions from TapTap editor Jay Hunter at the link below. Spoilers: He didn't like it at all either.
The Day Before is officially the worst game I’ve ever played
https://www.taptap.io/post/6653242
Mentioned games
:strip_exif():background_color(white):format(jpeg):quality(40))
