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Following The Day Before’s recent pair of setbacks, fans are now starting to lose patience with the much-anticipated Steam survival MMO.
Just the other day, The Day Before mysteriously vanished from Steam, with developer Fntastic assuring fans that a common bug was affecting visibility and that it would likely reappear after Valve concluded regularly scheduled maintenance. It did not.
Following more confusion, the developers confirmed that The Day Before had been taken down following a copyright claim from an individual who trademarked the title before the studio did. As a result, the survival MMO has been delayed nine months, shifting from a March release to November 10.
As a result of the snafu, an eagerly anticipated gameplay video due to release this month has been delayed while the team consult with its lawyers and sorts out the trademark issue. No new timeframe for the video was given outside the fact it would launch as soon as possible.
While the intricacies of game development are far from transparent, there’s still a collective ‘huh’ hanging over the community, with many finding the situation suspicious. The Day Before’s Steam disappearance going from a tech hiccup to a copyright dispute is one hell of a flip, and people aren’t entirely sure why a copyright dispute takes nine months to sort.
On top of that, fans have long been sceptical if The Day Before can deliver on its lofty promises as gameplay has remained scarce since its reveal. The delay to this month’s “lengthy” gameplay deep dive has done little to ease those concerns.
The Day Before has courted controversy elsewhere, too. Last year, Fntastic updated its website to include a volunteer section, which included requests for crucial part-time roles relating to translation and community management. As the section title suggests, payment comes in the form of “participation certificates and free codes”. It wasn’t immediately clear if that work was required for The Day Before specifically, though it still turned heads from a labour standpoint.
Delays are part and parcel of creating games – as is the community frustration and disappointment that stems from that. Given The Day Before’s rocky road to launch, though, scepticism around the anticipated survival MMO is now overruling excitement.
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