Vapourware The Day Before - MMO survival shooter from the Russian studio Fntastic

[ferratilis]

Kick rocks Gollum, the new champ is here.

 

[Cyberarmy]

And they closed shop, then Steam removed the game from its store.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-day-bef...-most-wishlisted-game-to-the-end-of-a-studio/

The Day Before saga, explained: From Steam's most wishlisted game to the end of a studio​

Catching you up on The Day Before's disastrous journey to launch.

The survival MMO that once sat at the top of Steam's most-wishlisted games list is crumbling before our eyes. After numerous delays, weirdly confrontational statements, and a trademark dispute with a calendar app, The Day Before finally released last week and its Steam review average almost immediately settled at "overwhelmingly negative." Today, its studio abruptly closed, citing poor financial performance.

Still unfolding, this is one of the most surprising things to happen in PC gaming this year. But how did we get here? Let's take a step back and walk through the strange saga of The Day Before.

The impressive trailers: January - October 2021​

The Day Before story started almost three years ago, when a trailer for the open-world survival MMO appeared online, most notably shared by IGN. The trailer, which included scripted player comms and a voiceover explanation of the game, drew immediate comparisons to The Last of Us and The Division for its PvPvE format, scavenging mechanics, and city setting.

While some commenters at the time were skeptical the final game would look as good, the graphically impressive demo was enough to sell people on the idea of a survival MMO with a triple-A sheen, and propelled The Day Before into Steam's top-wishlisted games list, where it'd stay for two years.

"This looks cool! But it also looks like a super super super polished demo and the real version is not going to look like this haha," wrote IGN user Ooshbala at the time.

If The Day Before's narrated announcement trailer looked too artificial, the 13-minute gameplay debuted on IGN in April 2021 might've convinced you otherwise. The trailer shows off what The Day Before will be like outside the big city: mud trucking, fixing flat tires, and farmhouse raids. The demo was still obviously scripted, but not in a way uncommon for games still in active development, so nobody was calling foul quite yet. In fact, trucking through mud already looked pretty fun.

The release date drops: October 2021​

Another few months later, Fntastic had a release date to share: June 2022. Nothing out of the ordinary still—trailers continued to look impressive, and the new release date sounded about right for a game that's been in development for a few years already. Comment sections around this time were a healthy mix of hype and skepticism.

"Watch Dogs, The Division, and Cyberpunk 2077 all looked incredible in trailers...don't get too hyped," wrote YouTube user dr.loomis4221 at the time.

Then, The Day Before went dark for six months. Other than a January 2022 trailer showing off DLSS and RTX support with panning shots of reflective skyscrapers, Fntastic stopped sharing updates on the game as it was presumably ramping up for release day

The Day Before is delayed one month before release: May 2022​

Just a month before The Day Before, now the top-wishlisted game on Steam, is set to release, Fntastic pulled the plug. The game was delayed nearly a year so Fntastic could upgrade to Unreal Engine 5. The new date is March 1, 2023.

"Feeling and understanding the great responsibility that we face, with enormous gratitude in our hearts, we're pleased to announce that The Day Before is switching to the new Unreal Engine 5 technology!" the studio said in a statement at the time. "The transition to a more advanced and adapted open worlds engine, will make the gameplay of The Day Before even more fantastic."

It was a little weird. Big games sometimes get delayed just months before their release date, but usually they're pushed back a matter of weeks or a month, not a whole year.

Fntastic criticized for using unpaid 'volunteer' workers: June 2022​

Just a month after the big delay, Fntastic put out a call for "volunteers" willing to help get The Day Before over the finish line. People had already taken notice of the studios' quirky communication style, but this was the first time it got them into trouble. There seemed to be a misunderstanding around Fntastic's special definition of volunteer, but it did admit some of its employees were unpaid help.

Six months of silence, Fntastic promises to show some gameplay before release: January 2023​

By 2023, unease around the lack of The Day Before updates was on the rise. The game's second deadline was in two months, and by this time it'd been nearly two years since we'd seen significant gameplay. The official Discord was abuzz with fans who were convinced the next DayZ-like phenomenon was almost here. The Day Before had its naysayers, too, but pessimism was shot down by much louder enthusiasm.

Fntastic announced that it'd finally share a new video in January that'd "showcase a majority of the features and gameplay elements requested by our community and will provide a clear glimpse into the current state of development." Meanwhile, we seriously questioned if The Day Before was legit. The red flags were piling up, but things would get really weird just a few days later.

The second delay & Steam takedown: January 2023​

Surprise! The Day Before was delayed another eight months, this time because of a trademark dispute with a calendar app called "TheDayBefore." The Day Before Steam page disappeared, and Fntastic also postponed that gameplay video we were promised. Reactions were all over the place: On one hand, the dispute seemed real and disruptive for Fntastic. On the other hand, eight months! That's a really long time to delay a game that's supposedly almost finished—unless it wasn't?

The delay and bizarre timing created a perfect storm. The Day Before had been elevated from wishlist curiosity to the main character of the internet. To make matters worse, Fntastic changed its story, clarifying that it was going to delay The Day Before regardless of the trademark dispute. The curious case of the survival game that may or may not really exist became a closely-followed beat for websites and YouTubers. The Discord was flooded with trolls and miffed fans who were starting to believe they were misled. Misinformed and unpaid Discord moderators were left at the frontlines to field Fntastic's mess. Fans demanded answers, but the mods knew as much as us.

"I've got a fresh canister of Copium for those that believe this game is *actually* real," wrote PC Gamer commenter HiraethGamer at the time.

The promised return: February - October 2023​

Following the January delay, Fntastic's communications got weirder and desperate. In February the studio announced it would show new gameplay despite the lawsuit. The 10-minute gameplay trailer did actually come out, and the game looked…fine, I guess? It was a lot of running around empty streets, looting cabinets, and very little combat. Viewers also questioned Fntastic's claim that it was "raw gameplay," citing the lack of a HUD and minimal look at the UI. Others noticed that elements of the latest trailer looked heavily inspired by a Call of Duty trailer from 2020.

In the same month, several The Day Before trailers disappeared from Fntastic's YouTube channel. The studio said it was the lawsuit's fault. With no Steam page and delisted videos, Fntastic pledged to return to Steam in time to make its November release date, and even announced a beta test.

"We’ll be back at the top of the wishlists," Fntastic co-founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev said in a WellPlayed interview in June.

The Day Before returns to Steam with one last delay: November 2023​

Fntastic managed to keep a promise…sort of. The studio beat the lawsuit. The Day Before's Steam page was restored at the start of November and even reclaimed its spot among the top-wishlisted games. Unfortunately, the game also got delayed a month to December 7, now planned for early access.The studio's hopes seemed high as its attitude shifted from defensive to indignant.

"All this time, we've been focused on developing the game itself," Gotovtsev told PC Gamer. "You know for us it's a huge leap forward from a little indie studio from the edge of the world and over all these years we've been going through pain, suffering and blood, but we're doing everything possible to go through all the obstacles to the very top. We've encountered everything, from people's disbelief to trademark attacks."

There was a new gameplay overview trailer too. Fntastic had largely lost the confidence of the internet by this point, but the trailer wasn't half bad. It at least looked true to the game Fntastic planned to release.

The Day Before finally comes out, and stinks: December 7, 2023​

The Day Before finally came out, and it was broken. The game immediately shot into the top sellers list on Steam with over 30,000 concurrents, but only a fraction of those players could successfully play the game.

Those who could play noticed something unexpected about The Day Before: it wasn't really an open-world survival MMO by typical standards. Its format of gearing up in a hub zone, deploying to an open world, then extracting your gear back home resembled more of an extraction shooter like Escape from Tarkov. This realisation was the last straw for many, but personally, it was The Day Before's terrible shooting, boring world, and uninteresting characters that led me to uninstall it after an hour. The game is flooded with thousands of reviews on day one, settling at "Overwhelmingly negative" on Steam.

Fntastic shuts down: December 11, 2023​

That brings us to today. Only four days after finally getting its game out the door, Fntastic has closed its doors, citing the financial failure of The Day Before and its "miscalculated capabilities."

There are still a lot of unknowns around this abrupt shuttering, but it's clear this is no normal studio shutdown. Fntastic hasn't just ceased operations, it's seemingly trying to erase any evidence that it ever existed. You can no longer buy The Day Before. Every video on Fntastic's YouTube page is gone, as is nearly every voice and text channel on the official Discord server. The situation is still unfolding, and we'll keep you updated as we learn more.

 

[Myobi]

An update on this. Most (all?) employees deleted their social media accounts, and Valve are doing complete refunds after less than 50 hours in EA. Game is delisted.

Good guy valve, saving idiots from themselves.

Was that the "most wishlisted game on steam"? You download Unreal Engine, you watch some tutorials, you announce some bland goyslop zombie shooter and done! You are the most wishlisted game on Steam.

The issue is that it got advertised by some big platforms early on for whatever reason. It's sort of like "Day of the Dragons", shitty dragon game that opened up a Kickstarter shortly before an Harry Potter event with the same name, redirecting a fuck ton of people to it.

 

[orcinator]

Good guy valve, saving idiots from themselves.

They should have charged them twice.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Aaaaand it's gone

They worked for 5 years without paying themselves?

Either they are lying or they are unbelievably dumb basement dwellers living with their parents.

 

[ferratilis]

 

[Orwenn]

In Russia, we don't trust people called Eduard. Simple as.

 

[Mise]

Should've put strong black women on the cover art and used Sweet Baby as their consultant, would've fared much better.

 

[OSK]

Slavs gonna Slav.

 

[Modron]

Dry your tears you can play this instead now:

 

[anvi]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/this-was-ou...grated-and-its-youtube-channel-has-gone-dark/

'This was our first big experience, sh*t happens': The Day Before's CEO is MIA, its Discord server has disintegrated, and its YouTube Channel has gone dark​

Trainwrecks aren't exactly rare in the gaming industry, but it's rare that they're this spectacular. After a suspiciously-polished trailer, The Day Before quickly became one of Steam's most wishlisted games.

Then delays, more delays, major red flags featuring "volunteer" workers, a much shoddier 10-minute gameplay video (which you can't watch anymore) and finally a debut on December 7. One preempted by the studio Fntastic begging players to not accuse them of "scamming" people. One pile-up of car-crash Steam reviews and studio closure later, and The Day Before was pulled from Steam, December 11. In response to a baffled fan, Fntastic replied:

I'll just let that sit there without comment. I've given a very abridged history, but in case you want the full run-down my fellow Staff Writer Morgan Park has put together an explainer post. While following this unfolding story yesterday, my US colleagues also watched the game's Discord server collapse into ashes.

"I've never seen a Discord server disintegrate in real time," Morgan notes before sharing a vaguely apocalyptic screenshot of a voice chat with over 311 people in it on the left, a bot getting bullied with slash commands in the centre, and a vanished member list to the right.

The studio's YouTube channel also has no videos on it. I'm not even confident it'll still exist in the coming days. The cherry on the top of this nightmare sundae? Fntastic's CEO is MIA. As spotted by Second Wind's Nick Calandra, Fntastic CEO Eduard Gotovtsev has deleted his Twitter account and muted his LinkedIn profile.

The Day Before's early access period lasted four days. Now, it's being scrubbed clean from the internet in the world's clumsiest vanishing act. Nobody sets out to make a bad game—but the speed at which this particular one took a nosedive is stunning in the literal sense of the word. From a top-wishlisted game to 'errr, nevermind', I'll be fascinated by what details emerge from game's post-mortem.

 

[Infinitron]

They're baaaaaack:

 

[Tyranicon]

The fucking gall lol wtf.

World is fucking crazy, man.

 

[Myobi]

returned money to all players, including forcibly issuing refunds to those who did not request them. How many companies return money like that? We are

Mother fuckers bait and switched the shit out of this, got cock blocked by Steam and now are painting themselves as the Holy Mary of game developers, but just as Holy Mary, these cunts got dicked hard and deservingly so...

 

[Ranselknulf]

The "negative" videos looked like a playable game to me.

Guess this is a case of over promising. If there wasn't so much drama over the game being advertised as "perfect" I would have given it a shot. Doesn't seem its available to play now though.

 

[Myobi]

The "negative" videos looked like a playable game to me.

Guess this is a case of over promising. If there wasn't so much drama over the game being advertised as "perfect" I would have given it a shot. Doesn't seem its available to play now though.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information...crisis-services/helplines-listening-services/

Take care of yourself buddy.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Not really invested in this game as I've spent no money on it. Just commenting on the video as someone who plays a lot of early access games.

Looks playable, but they over promised with deceptive advertising.

I wonder who will end up with the game assets when this all shakes out.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-day-bef...ailers-and-no-ones-sure-where-the-bosses-are/

The Day Before was an even bigger disaster than you thought: devs reportedly made to pay fines for bad work, learned it was an MMO from the trailers, and no one's sure where the bosses are​

A new documentary from German games sites Game Two and GameStar has shed some more light on the disastrous development of The Day Before, and boy howdy, it's worse than you thought. Game Two says it spoke to 16 former Fntastic employees, one of its former "volunteers," and seven staff from The Day Before's publisher Mytona. The picture they paint is, well, staggering.

Speaking anonymously, Game Two's sources allege that working at Fntastic—The Day Before's now-defunct development studio—was pure, megalomaniacal chaos. As they tell it, the game's development was constantly buffeted by the changing whims of the Gotovtsev brothers, the studio's founders, and the scope and style of the game would change whenever one of them got their hands on whatever the big game of the month was.

Sources allege that the game's character creator had to be overhauled multiple times to keep up with GTA Online, then Hogwarts Legacy, then Baldur's Gate 3. While the game's setting—a smoky, oppressive city—had to be dramatically altered to become brighter and friendlier after one of the brothers played Spider-Man 2. One former dev said they only learned the game was supposed to be an MMO when they saw a trailer for it.

But that pales in comparison to reports about how the game's staff were treated. Fntastic has already drawn criticism for its use of volunteer workers on its projects, but some of the details alleged by former staff are mind-boggling. Fntastic is said to have made use of a great deal of young, inexperienced labour drawn from its home base of Yakutsk as well other countries in the former USSR, like Kazakhstan and Armenia. Workers, in other words, with no other options. Sources say that there was a great deal of "voluntary" unpaid overtime and months of crunch—one says they "found myself begging for a few hours' break just to find time for a shower or a meal"—but that's not all.

One claim, backed up by several of Game Two's sources, says that employees were made to pay fines to the company for turning in substandard work, with some reportedly forced to pay $1,930 for poor-quality voice recordings. Others were kept on their toes by a company policy of spontaneous termination: one of The Day Before's five testers was apparently fired from the company just before release after one of the Gotovtsevs encountered a bug.

As for the Gotovstevs themselves, it seems no one quite knows where they've ended up in the aftermath of Fntastic's closure. The pair went AWOL around the game's launch—a fact that several staff attribute to foreknowledge that the game was in a dire state—and only reappeared to shutter the studio via Microsoft Teams. Several of Game Two's sources believe the pair have started from scratch at a new studio making mobile games, but it remains unclear which one, if that's even the case.

The Day Before was one of last year's most utterly chaotic launches, managing as it did to build anticipation (and get a huge number of pre-orders) on the back of footage and promises that we now know were hiding the true state of the game. Before launch the game faced severe delays after a baffling argument with a calendar app, and didn't do much to assuage anyone's fears when its first gameplay demo looked almost determinedly generic.

When it launched, it met predictable mockery and scorn, only for Fntastic to close its doors four days later. The game itself has now been extracted from existence. The remains of the studio's management have since blamed its poor performance on a "hate campaign" by "bloggers."

If that sounds astonishing, you haven't heard the half of it. It's well worth going and checking out Game Two's documentary in full over on YouTube (it's in German, but has English subtitles) to get a full picture of just how messy and chaotic last year's messiest, most chaotic game really was.

 

[Ranselknulf]

A better game will rise from the ashes.

The developers continue their work and when the time is right, then they will re-release the game.

Prepare to eat crow.

 

[Hellion]

Guess who's back, back again.



https://tech4gamers.com/the-days-before-dev-back/

The Day Before Dev Is Back; Asking $15K For Their Next Game​

ByObaid Ur Rehman

Day Before Was The Biggest Scam Last Year

• After the massive failure of The Day Before, its developer was closed but is now aiming to make a return.
• Fntatsic is back and asking for $15K from the fans for its next game, Escape Factory.
• The fandom isn’t happy with this return, and if the developer fails to collect this sum in the next 29 days, it won’t be able to return.

The Day Before was shown as a pretty good game before being launched last year. The game was being developed via Unreal Engine, and it looked so good in the trailers that fans didn’t believe it was a real game.
Needless to say, the game’s hype was pretty high before release, but everything changed on launch. As soon as it was released, the fandom showered it with hate, basically calling the game a scam.
It was nothing like what was shown in the trailer, and due to that, the developer had to refund everyone. Now the studio is back and is asking for $15K to make their next game.
Why it matters: The Day Before was arguably one of the biggest scams in the history of gaming, so the fandom isn’t going to trust the developer after that incident last year.

Fnastic Is Back And Asking For $15K From Fans For Its Next Game
The developer has made a return on Twitter, stating that everyone deserves a second chance. While that is true, given how fans gave CDPR a second chance to change Cyberpunk 2077. However, these two are completely different situations, and the developers know it.

We deeply apologize to everyone for The Day Before and take full responsibility for what happened.
Fntastic

The developer has also asked fans to check out their plan for Fntastic 2.0, which aims to fix past mistakes. However, as expected, the fandom didn’t welcome the developer after such a horrendous release last year.
Many are questioning the developer’s audacity to come back like nothing happened. The fandom has clearly stated that they can’t trust Fntastic again, and that is the end of it. However, despite that, it has launched a Kickstarter campaign asking for money for its next game.

The Day Before Is Arguably The Biggest Scam of 2023
Fntastic aims to collect $15K for their next game, which honestly doesn’t look that great. As of the time of writing, only $382 has been collected. With only 29 more days to go, we find it hard to believe that the fandom shows interest in this game.
Latest Updates

The new game it is developing is called Escape Factory. The developer aims to collect $15K, but if it can’t collect this much money in the coming days, it won’t be able to make a return. Fntastic has clearly stated that if the fundraiser doesn’t meet this specific goal, then all of the funds raised for their new game will be refunded.

While the developer has shown courage and tried to make a return, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to collect such an amount after what happened with The Day Before.

Throwing this here for lack of a better thread, if repost plz delet.

 

[Myobi]

"The Day Before Dev Is Back; Asking $15K For Their Next Game"..... LOL!

 

[Ranselknulf]

I believe in second chances.

Cautiously optimistic.

 

[Myobi]

A second chance to rip off fucking idiots.