Fntastic, the developer of The Day Before, has released a new statement aiming to address what it referred to as “misinformation” that has surfaced online from “supposedly anonymous sources.” It claims that a “hate campaign” towards The Day Before “inflicted significant damage” on gamers’ perceptions of the game.
The Day Before was released in early access last December, and four days later, Fntastic announced that it had “failed financially,” and was closing the studio and ending development on the game. It later confirmed that refunds were being given to all players, even those who didn’t request them, and the game’s servers were closed this week.
In its latest statement, the developer said: “We worked hard and honestly on the game for five years. We didn’t take a penny from users, didn’t use crowdfunding, and didn’t offer pre-orders.
“Even after the game was closed, we, together with the publisher, 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 not a fly-by-night company. We have been operating since 2015 and have always conducted our business honestly.”
⚡Recently, a lot of misinformation has emerged on the Internet from supposedly anonymous sources. Fntastic provides an official response to these statements.#fntastic #thedaybefore pic.twitter.com/zRKWQ1nfmrJanuary 24, 2024
The statement continued, adding that “we still have a great relationship with our publisher” and “we had excellent relationships with our team.” Furthermore, speaking about the game itself, Fntastic said: “We implemented everything shown in the trailers, from home improvements and a detailed world to off-road vehicles. We only disabled a few minor features, like parkour, due to bugs but planned to include them in the full release.”
It then stated that “the negative bias instilled by certain bloggers making money on hate affected perceptions of the game.” Fntastic claims that despite fixing “initial bugs and server issues,” and the game receiving “improved reviews over the weekend,” ultimately, “the hate campaign had already inflicted significant damage.”
Wrapping things up, Fntastic thanked those who had supported the game, and encouraged people to follow the developer's social media pages “to know what will happen next.” At the time of writing, it’s not clear what this is referring to given that the studio closed in December.
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