Update: The Day Before is no longer available to purchase on Steam. It's currently unclear whether it was delisted by developer Fntastic or by Valve itself. We've reached out to Valve for further information and will provide additional updates as we learn more.
Original story: Four days after the launch of The Day Before, developer Fntastic is shutting down.
"Today, we announce the closure of Fntastic studio," the company says in a tweet. "Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue. All income received is being used to pay off debts to our partners. 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 unfortunately, we don't have the funding to continue the work."
The Day Before was, at various points, Steam's most wishlisted game, even as prospective fans were skeptical about whether or not its small developer could actually deliver on the promise of a zombie MMO at a giant scale. Trademark issues, controversy over volunteer developers, and dull gameplay presentations in the year leading up to launch only gave the skeptics more room to doubt.
After several delays, The Day Before officially launched on December 7 to overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam. It soon went from being the most wishlisted game on Steam to being one of the worst-reviewed titles in the platform's history as players discovered it wasn't really even an MMO at all.
"At the moment, the future of The Day Before and Propnight [Fntastic's previous release] is unknown, but the servers will remain operational," the studio says in its closure announcement. "We apologize if we didn't meet your expectations. We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities. Creating games is an incredibly challenging endeavor."
The Day Before may have disappointed, but the best games of 2023 still have plenty to offer.
