Critically-Panned ‘The Day Before’ Has Closed Its Servers, A Month After The Development Studio Closed

'The Day Before' (Image: Fntastic Studio)

In December 2023, the early access release of Fntastic Studio’s zombie survival game, The Day Before, came with one of the largest negative responses from gamers last year, with many critics stating that the game had issues with its slow framerate, causing delay and bugs with it also feeling unoriginal in gameplay, style and narrative.

The studio had promised several things for the game, such as the game’s intended MMO features, that were not present in the released version of the game.

At first, the game was highly anticipated due to its exciting announcement trailer, which was released on January 29, 2021, with gamers excited about the features displayed in the trailer. Although the reactions had started positive, the game got delayed until the end of 2023 due to alleged trademark issues. This delay had brought skepticism in the community before the release due to the vague explanations from the company.

Mere days after the early-access launch of the game, Fntastic Studio posted an official closure notice of their studio on X after suddenly removing the game from Steam on December 11. The reason for the closure was due to the company not having “the funding to continue the work,” as the post stated, with many of the replies claiming that the project was a scam and that the game had deceptive marketing.

Within month after the studio’s closure, despite stating that “the servers will remain operational” in their X post, The Day Before’s servers officially shut down at the beginning of this year on January 22. With less than a dozen players playing the game daily in its last weeks, this mostly came unnoticed by the community after the disappointing launch.

Around the time of the game’s launch, there were reports by former employees of Fntastic regarding the founders, Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev‘s, overbearing role in the development process, with some claiming that they threatened to remove developers from the studio if they objected to any of their ideas.

Not much is known about the response from the Gotovtsev brothers regarding these claims outside of a rumor regarding the two paying off their former developers to move on quietly from the game’s five-year development hell.

The Day Before is notable to many gamers due to the rare “1/10: Unbearable Score” given to it by IGN, which is not common to receive from the publication.