The Day Before studio claims it was the victim of a hate campaign by deceptive bloggers

Fntastic has claimed that The Day Before was the victim of a “hate campaign” carried out by “certain bloggers” who profited from being deceptive.

The claims were made as part of a wider defence of its working practices and the controversial game, which had its servers closed this week less than two months after its release.

Fntastic said it wanted to release an official response addressing “a lot of misinformation” that has recently been spreading online.

The studio announced its closure in December, just four days after the release of The Day Before, saying the game had “failed financially” and it lacked the funds to continue.

Billed as a post-apocalyptic open-world MMO survival game set in the US following a deadly pandemic, the game was mired in controversy for much of its known development.

A perceived lack of transparency from Fntastic, which was seemingly hesitant to show off the game at length, along with the revelation that the title was being largely developed by volunteers, and accusations that promotional materials included “ripped assets” from several other games, led to scepticism that the product would live up to the hype generated by its initial reveal in 2021.

⚡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/zRKWQ1nfmr

— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) January 24, 2024

Once the most wishlisted game on Steam, it suffered multiple delays, including a lengthy hold-up blamed on a trademark dispute, before finally releasing last month to mostly negative user reviews and accusations of false advertising.

“Certain bloggers made huge money by creating false content with huge titles from the very beginning to gain views and followers, exploiting the lack of information about the game’s development,” Fntastic claimed. “Their actions triggered a gold rush among content creators due to the game’s pre-release popularity.”

On the subject of what was promised and what was delivered, it claimed: “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.

“Remember the experiment where you’re asked to count pink objects in a room and then recall the blue ones? You won’t remember any. It’s all about focus,” it continued. “The negative bias instilled by certain bloggers making money on hate affected perceptions of the game.

“Look at unbiased gameplay like Dr. Disrespect‘s stream at release. Despite the initial bugs and server issues, he liked the game, which we fixed later, and the game received improved reviews over the weekend. Unfortunately, the hate campaign had already inflicted significant damage.”

While Fntastic has supposedly closed, the team behind the studio suggested players should expect to hear from it in another form.

“We are not a fly-by-night company. We have been operating since 2015 and have always conducted our business honestly,” it wrote.

“Since 2021, we’ve had a New Zealand venture called MytonaFntastic and a successful game, Propnight, which has sold almost a million copies,” it added. “Propnight also co-financed the development of The Day Before.”

Its statement concluded: “We are grateful to all the senders of mails who expressed support and appealed not to give up and to continue to work. Finally, we encourage you to subscribe to our social networks to know what will happen next.”