Fntastic shutting down amid "scam" allegations, citing lack of funding and The Day Before's commercial failure

Fntastic, a studio behind the controversial shooter The Day Before, has suddenly announced its closure. This comes just days after the launch of the game, which many players labeled a scam.

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Fntastic said it lacks the funds to continue its operating, meaning the studio is shutting down. The company plans to spend all income received from The Day Before to pay off debts to its partners.

“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 to work,” the statement reads.

This means Fntastic won’t finish The Day Before, which is currently in Early Access on Steam. However, the servers for the game and Propnight, the studio’s previous project, will remain operational.

It is worth noting that The Day Before has long been the most wishlisted upcoming game on Steam. This status usually gurantees strong sales at launch, but the title’s scandalous launch and negative reception from the first players could have significantly undermined the initial revenue targets.

“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,” Fntastic said. “We worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into the game.”

The studio apologized for not meeting player expectations, adding that it “miscalculated our capabilities.”

Official statement. #fntastic #thedaybefore #propnight pic.twitter.com/AKcRHeIaIW

— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 11, 2023

Launched on December 7, The Day Before received huge criticism from Steam players, with many calling Fntastic’s project a “scam.” The main reason is the game’s misleading marketing campaign, as it was branded as an open world MMO survival title, but turned out to be a Tarkov-style extraction shooter.

Although The Day Before peaked at over 38k concurrent users on Steam, its player count has drastically dropped over the weekend, to 5-7k CCU. Some players also started requesting refunds, but it is unclear how many people ended up getting their money back.

At launch, The Day Before received just 18.5% positive reviews. This made it one of the worst-rated games on Steam of all time, along with Overwatch 2, NBA 2K24, and War of the Three Kingdoms. Since December 7, the rating has slightly improved, but it remains “Mostly Negative”, with only 20% of more than 18k user reviews being positive.