Update: Valve has seemingly made the move to delist The Day Before from Steam. While the game's Steam page is still up, you can no longer purchase the game. Those who purchased the game are reporting being able to receive refunds, even well beyond the usual 2-hour limit.
Original story: Well... that was quick. Originally revealed back in 2021, The Day Before was promised to be an ambitious open-world looter-shooter zombie MMO along the lines of something like The Division and impressive early “gameplay” trailers earned the project a large following on Steam. Then the delays came, with Fntastic sometimes offering odd excuses for why the game had to be pushed back. The game did finally arrive this past week and was slammed with negative user reviews, as it turned out not to be an MMO at all, but more of an extraction shooter, and not a very good one.
Now, only four days later, developer Fntastic has announced they’re closing their doors. No more updates will be developed for The Day Before, and the future of the game is “unknown,” although one has to assume it's not exactly bright. Apparently, servers will stay up, at least for the time being.
“Today, we announce the closure of Fntastic studio. 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.
It's important to note that we didn't take any money from the public during the development of The Day Before; there were no pre-orders or crowdfunding campaigns. We worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into the game. At the moment, the future of The Day Before and Propnight is unknown, but the servers will remain operational.
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. We're grateful to everyone who supported us during these difficult years.”
The Day Before is available on PC (for now) for the morbidly curious.