The Day Before developer has issued a statement attempting to counter alleged "misinformation" about the launch of the game and the closure of the studio, laying partial blame on "bloggers," "content creators," and a "hate campaign."
In a post on Twitter, Fntastic says that it was providing "an official response" to "misinformation [...] from supposedly anonymous sources" about the development of the game. It's not clear what that misinformation is supposed to be, as recent headlines about The Day Before have focused on the closure of the game's servers, and rumors that its studio leads have already started work on a new game.
Nevertheless, Fantastic has hit back at claims that it deceived players, claiming that "we didn't take a penny from users," and congratulating itself for "forcibly issuing refunds to those who did not request them," likely referring to the game's publisher, Mytona, auto-refunding all copies of the game. It also counters claims that it deceived investors, stating that Mytona and Fntastic "still have a great relationship" and that the success of Fntastic's previous game, Propnight, helped finance the development of The Day Before.
⚡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 studio also suggests that claims made by "anonymous former employees" are inaccurate, casting aspersions about the very existence of these employees. The company claims to have "excellent relationships with the team," praising itself for "timely salary payments," among other things. It doesn't mention the reports of the studio previously relying on the work of unpaid volunteers.
The statement's tone becomes increasingly combative as it progresses into discussing who may have profited from The Day Before. According to Fntastic, "certain bloggers made huge money by creating false content [to gain views and followers, exploiting the lack of information about the game's development." That's likely a reference to the fact that The Day Before went through a significant period of radio silence before a nine-month delay over copyright issues in the wake of a disappointing trailer. Fantastic claims that the actions of those bloggers "triggered a gold rush among content creators due to the game's pre-release popularity."
The studio also discusses claims that The Day Before didn't live up to its own trailer. It claims that "we implemented everything shown in the trailers," though "a few minor features" were disabled temporarily due to bugs. It doesn't address suggestions from players that the game was not really the survival MMO it was billed as but was actually an extraction shooter.
Finally, the statement goes on to say that the game shut down because "the negative bias instilled by certain bloggers making money on hate affected perceptions of the game," and that "the hate campaign [...] inflicted significant damage" before The Day Before could recover from its launch, which saw several players unable to progress from the game's first room without encountering game-breaking bugs.
Fantastic closes its statement by pointing to the success of inflated "black market" sales of the game, and encourages readers to follow the studio on social media "to know what will happen next."
Moving past the obviously antagonistic tone of the statement, it's hard to get any firm answers from Fntastic. The studio appears to be trying to get ahead of reports from former employees, but at the time of writing, it's not clear what those reports might be, other than a month-old Russian language video on YouTube alleging crunch and a chaotic production schedule. The suggestion that players should follow Fntastic for information about future projects is particularly confusing given that the studio announced its closure in the wake of The Day Before's launch, but perhaps that has something to do with the fact that its leaders are understood to have moved on to a new project.
