The Day Before attracted widespread skepticism in the lead-up to its ill-fated launch, and upon release, the game proved all of its doubters concretely right. From lacking content to being a technical mess to being poorly made and not even being the kind of game it had been marketed as, the shooter was widely panned by critics and audiences instantly upon release.
Within four days of launch, developer Fntastic announced that it was shutting down and that The Day Before had been taken off sale, while earlier this week, its servers shut down as well, rendering it entirely (and blessedly) unplayable, with refunds being issued to those who purchased it.
Intriguingly, in spite of that shocking failure, and the fact that it’s officially closed down, Fntastic has taken to Twitter to issue yet another bizarre statement to defend itself and the game- although it’s chosen to do so by taking the offensive.
Fntastic says that the roundly criticized and evidently broken game was the victim of “negative bias” and a “hate campaign” that it says was perpetuated by “certain bloggers making money” off of said negativity, which, as per the developer, “affected the perception of the game”.
“Look at unbiased gameplay, like Dr. Disrespect’s stream at release,” Fntastic’s statement reads. “Despite the initial bugs and server issues, he liked the game, which we fixed later, and the game received improved reviews over the weekend. Unfortunately, the hate campaign had already inflicted significant damage.”
That doesn’t exactly explain why the developer chose to take the drastic measure of shutting down entirely and taking the game off sale within four days of release. But wait, there’s more, with the developer going on to talk about petitions being created for The Day Before to be revived, and Steam keys being sold at exorbitant prices by scalpers.
The statement continued, “By the way, after sales closed, many people wrote to us that bloggers had deceived them and they liked the game, and they asked for access. We also heard that petitions were created to continue development, and on the black market, the game’s price exceeded $200, and some even began to make their own mods.”
Fntastic has also suggested that in spite of officially announcing its closure in December, the studio is still sticking around, ending its statement by saying, “We encourage you to subscribe to our social networks to know what will happen next.” Whatever that is, hopefully audiences will approach it with even greater caution.
In our review of The Day Before, we gave it a score of 1/10, making it the first game to receive that score from GamingBolt in over a dozen years. Our review said, “There’s a reason the phrase ‘buyer beware’ remains relevant, and it’s because of games like The Day Before. The only bright side to its miserable existence is you can no longer purchase it.” Read the full review through here.
https://twitter.com/FntasticHQ/status/1750076648798785989
