The Day Before: From Epic Hype to Unprecedented Disaster
Admittedly, this story has been better and more extensively covered by various media outlets and YouTube channels, but the story behind The Day Before is simply way too fascinating not to write about. And because all the info and news are scattered across the internet, my goal here was to compile everything into one cohesive article, but the rabbit hole goes deep, and I honestly had a hard time writing this in a way that chronicles everything comprehensively.
Developer Fntastic was founded in Yakutsk, Capital of Sakha, Russia, by brothers Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev in 2015. After a successful Kickstarter campaign under the name 8 Points, they released their first game, The Wild Eight in 2017, and would go on to release three more games over the following years, Dead Dozen (2018), Radiant One (2018), and Propnight (2021).
Then on January 29, 2021, they announced The Day Before to the world. What followed was one of the most mismanaged developments and disastrous releases in video game history.
The Delay Before
The Day Before was promoted as an Open-World Zombie Survival MMO, and a combo of highly polished too-good-to-be-true trailers skyrocketed it towards the top of the most wishlisted games on Steam. The Announcement Trailer came on Jan. 29, 2021, then on March 31, 2021 at 9am PST, Fntastic and publisher Mytona, in partnership with IGN, were to host a live special event to showcase more of the game. But the day before, on March 30, the stream was delayed to April 6. Come April 6, people tuned in to find The Day Before logo with some background music playing. That's fine, this is common, they're just giving people a few minutes to join before starting the show. So, people waited, but nothing happened. A little bit later, Fntastic would post on twitter that they were having some technical difficulties, but to stay tuned. So, people continued to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait... for 9 hours. Eventually the stream shut off, and only then did Fntastic announce that the event was postponed. Immediately there were questions: Why delay the event in the first place? Why have a live event for a trailer instead of just uploading the video like normal? Why did they leave the stream up for 9 hours? And did the trailer even exist at all?
Three days later, on April 9, 2021, the Exclusive Official Gameplay Trailer was finally released, receiving similar reactions as the Announcement Trailer. A few months later on Oct. 15, 2021, the Official Release Date Trailer was released announcing a release date of June 21, 2022, but this trailer didn't just come and go without leaving people a little soured. Leading up to the trailer, Fntastic teased that a special announcement would come right after it: the reveal of an entirely different game nobody had ever heard of that they've been developing alongside The Day Before, Propnight. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with a developer using the popularity of one of its games to help promote another, it was just disappointing because it's not what people were expecting.
Outside of the special event incident, nothing out of the ordinary so far. The release date was just around the corner (in video game terms) and seemed reasonable given the footage that had already been shown in relation to the average development time for a game. Talk of the game around this time was a healthy mix of hype and skepticism as the game looked a little too good to be true, but that also is nothing out of the ordinary.
But then Fntastic goes dark, and in behavior that makes sense in retrospect, stopped releasing updates, info, footage, or even just ads promoting the game in the months leading up to the release.
Finally, just a month before its scheduled June release, Fntastic broke their silence only to say that The Day Before, now the #1 most wishlisted game on Steam, was going to be delayed nearly a year to March 1, 2023. The reason being was so the developers could upgrade the game to Unreal Engine 5.
Now, last minute delays are also nothing out of the ordinary, but the circumstances of this delay definitely were. Last minute delays for necessary polish or bug removal are not unheard of, switching game engines is not unheard of, but never both at the same time. Switching game engines mid-development is a very big deal, let alone doing so a month before your game is supposed to be released. Depending on your current engine, assets, coding, and numerous other things, switching engines could potentially be the equivalent to starting over. Even when just going from UE4 to UE5, any modifications that were made to your original base engine will affect how things carry over. This delay was undoubtedly a red flag.
Then Fntastic goes dark… again.
At this point, the skepticism had overtaken the hype. With top-notch graphics and huge ambitions, but inexplicable delays and the realization that the public has yet to see any unscripted gameplay, people started to wonder what was going on with The Day Before. Rumors started flying that the trailers were fake and the game didn’t actually exist.
Blood, Sweat, & Volunteers
In June 2022, an article on Well-Played pointed out that Fntastic updated their website with a new Volunteer page in vain of a job posting. But the “Volunteer” label immediately drew criticism from across the internet.
The positions were described as either a full-time salaried volunteer or a part-time volunteer that would be compensated with non-monetary rewards.
First question: What is a salaried volunteer? If you’re getting paid then you’re not a volunteer, you’re an employee, or at the very least, an independent contractor.
Second question: Does Fntastic really not have a development team? They have one of the most impressive looking MMO survival games ever revealed and the backing of publisher Mytona, and it’s being made by volunteers?
When Well-Played reached out to Fntastic regarding their volunteer program, they received the following statement:
“The values of our company are about dedication, willingness to help, to deliver great products, and in doing so, being kind and open-minded. During the short history of our company, there have been many people who approached us and wanted to help in different ways. It doesn’t relate to code writing, or development itself though, but other important things such as moderation, localization, or simply rooting for us and cheering us up.”
Needless to say, the admission that some of their employees were unpaid help did not go over well, and the idea that some were simply just there to cheer them up had many people wondering if Fntastic’s PR department was also volunteers.
Teams@Wish.com
On Jan. 4, 2023, Fntastic released a video which they led people to believe was going to be about The Day Before and a behind the scenes look at its development. In the not-so-subtlest of ways, the video titled “Life at Fntastic”, turned out to just be an infomercial for something called Continent, an online collaboration app developed by Fntastic. Yet another one of their other products people had never heard of.
Continent started as an app that was only intended to be used in-house so the development team to communicate with each other. But employees, or perhaps just the Gotovtsev brothers, realized the potential of the app if it were to be released to the mass market. Envisioned as the Russian equivalent to MS Teams, Zoom, or Google Meetup, this could've actually worked in the post-pandemic world of working remote, and had various Russian businesses interested in the product. However, it was 2022, and sanctions had come down hard on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. Thus, the Gotovtsev's decided not to work with Russia and take their app to the international market. But in that market, where there's better workplace apps already established and supported by multimillion dollar companies, Continent was basically the Wish.com version of Microsoft Teams and died a very quick death.
The Brief Life of Continent:
August 2018, Fantastic secures a domain, puts up a basic website, then does nothing with it.
January 2023, the website gets a major overhaul following its public reveal.
February 2023, the app itself receives an update adding voice chat.
March 14, 2023, the Continent website is taken down and its Twitter account deleted.
And just like that, Continent was no more. It lasted all of 2 months after being made public and marked the second time Fntastic had used the popularity of The Day Before to promote another one of their products, adding fuel to the fiery rumors that The Day Before was just a bunch of smoke and mirrors in order to garner attention.
Patent Pending
Two months before its March release, another delay would come on Jan. 24, 2023, when the game's Steam page suddenly vanished. In a Steam Community post, Fntastic's moderator, Wholf, was quick to claim that the disappearance was due to technical difficulties, saying: “This is a known bug that has affected multiple titles in the past. Please note that Steam regularly conducts maintenance on Tuesdays and this issue will likely be resolved during that time.”
But, in a Twitter post on Jan. 25, 2023, Fntastic said that the delay was due to a trademark dispute, revealing that they were having trouble securing the trademark for the name, The Day Before.
Then, on Jan. 27, 2023, just 2 days later when speaking with IGN, Fntastic claimed they were already planning to delay the game anyway. Straight up admitting that their previous statement that the delay was due to the trademark dispute was a blatant lie.
But going back to their Twitter statement, in it they say they were not aware of the trademark issue until Jan. 19, 2023, when they received the complaint. Unfortunately for Fntastic, The United States Patent and Trademark Office is public information. So, let's investigate.
Fntastic's trademark file shows they didn't apply for it until Jan. 27, 2022, a full year after the game was announced. Meanwhile, a one Sun Jae Lee's trademark file shows they applied for it on May 21, 2021. (Sidenote: This was not a "squatting" or "sniping" move. Sun Jae Lee's calendar app, TheDayBefore, has been around since 2010 and already held the trademark in several other countries. Upon learning of Fntastic's game, they filed in the U.S. in order protect their pre-existing brand.)
But the most notable dates are 1) Aug. 16, 2022, in Sun Jae Lee's file, when their application was published for opposition. No opposition was taken, so they were granted the trademark and final registration was confirmed on Nov. 1, 2022. And 2) Nov. 16, 2022 in Fntastic's file, when they were sent a Non-Final Action notice. In it, they were notified that their registration was being refused because of a likelihood of confusion with Sun Jae Lee's existing registration.
Government records themselves show that Fntastic was notified of this issue well before Jan. 19, 2023, proving that their statement on Twitter was also false. Fantastic eventually got to keep the name on the grounds that people were unlikely to confuse an MMO video game with a calendar app and took to social media announcing that they won their legal battle.
But the question of why they waited so long to file for the trademark prompted some to wonder if Fntastic was purposely misleading people in order to secure funding. Not helping this rumor was that their Twitter statement doubled as yet another delay announcement to Nov. 10, 2023; 17 months after its original release date. They promised it would be the last delay, but as we know now, they didn't keep it.
Inspirational Plagiarism
On Feb. 2, 2023, Fntastic released The Day Before — Official Gameplay Trailer. Literally, as soon as it started, people were suspicious. The trailer opens with a shot-for-shot copy of the 2020 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Zombies Reveal Trailer that was far too similar to be considered tasteful inspiration. This only added to the onslaught of comparisons between The Day Before and other games. Such as: the title font's similarity to The Last of Us, screenshots similar to The Division and Snow Runner, and in the final trailer to come, the voiceover narration from the Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption trailers.
In response to these accusations, Fntastic released the following statement on Twitter about the dangers of disinformation.
All of this coming only a week after their trademark debacle was pure irony. And with that dispute still unresolved at the time, in February 2023, all videos related to The Day Before were removed from Fntastic's YouTube channel.
Then for the next 6 months, Fntastic goes dark again... again.
Finally, on Nov. 1, 2023, on the verge of release, The Day Before was back on Steam and Fntastic released a double whammy of a final trailer. Not only was it being delayed again, to Dec. 7, 2023, but was now being released in an early access state. After all this time, multiple delays, and scandalous business practices, players wouldn't even be getting a finished product. And in one more act to raise a red flag, on Dec. 6, 2023, the day before launch, Fntastic scrubbed their YouTube channel of all their promotional trailers.
The Day After
On Dec. 7, 2023, The Day Before was finally released. Everyone knew it was going to be bad, but what we got was beyond our lowest expectations. Reactions were swift and brutal as the game was a disaster in every way possible.
To begin, it wasn't even the game we were told it was going to be for the past two years, not even the same genre. Rather than an MMO, it turned out to be an extremely bare bones, barely functioning Extraction Shooter. Numerous server issues left many people unable to even login. When you were able to login, the latency was extremely prevalent. The framerate would often plummet, and bullet hits could take up to several seconds to register, which became even more exaggerated when engaged with another player in PvP.
The world itself was empty and lifeless, you could spend the vast majority of your time wandering around the city and never see another player or even a zombie... in a zombie apocalypse game. If you did somehow find a zombie, they were borderline a complete non-factor. They usually appear in small numbers, get stuck in the in environment, and can't even catch you at your normal jogging speed.
Speaking of getting stuck, the developers didn't include an "Unstuck" command in the game. So, if you happened to fall through the map into the abyss, like many players did in the game's opening sequence, you were stuck. And turning the game off and back on didn't fix it, because when you logged back in you respawned in the same place you left. The only solution was to either die, or completely start the game over with a new character.
This game was $39 and lacked nearly everything that's expected from either an open-world game, zombie game, survival game, MMO, extraction game, or even just a 3rd person shooter in general. It was even missing the most basic of features, such as melee, mantling, and any kind enemy variety. It was so bad and broken that the only motivation some people had to continue playing was just to see how many bugs they could find.
But it did manage to achieve the coveted unicorn of review scores: 1/10 from IGN, the first time since 2011.
SteamDB data shows The Day Before peaked at 38,104 players when it launched, but as the game got universally panned, going into day 2, it dropped nearly 50% down to 18,718, then on day 3, an addition 25% down to 9,319, and so it went. Today that number fluctuates between 0 and 1.
Flip and Flop
Going back to the Official Gameplay Trailer released on Feb. 2, 2023, it wasn't just imagery comparative to other games that it was being called out for. One of the main criticisms against Fntastic is that The Day Before is an asset flip, meaning that it uses pre-made assets from other sources with next to no modifications. Just from watching the trailer, people were able to spot copy & pasted objects throughout it, and were even able locate the exact assets that were used from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Fntastic obviously denied these accusations, defending their work in an official statement on Twitter.
Now I will say that paying for and utilizing an asset that has already been made by someone else in order speed up development is a fairly common and acceptable practice… to a degree. On Dec. 9, 2023, user EpicStory1989 on Reddit compiled a list that catalogs all the confirmed assets from the UE Marketplace that were used in The Day Before. These assets range from vehicles and buildings, all the way down to the inventory and quest systems. And while unconfirmed as of yet, many believe the city itself that the game is set in is also a store-bought asset, specifically from the American City Packs (Bundle). This entire game was an asset flip, hyped up with fake trailers.
"Sh*t Happens."
On day 4, Dec. 11, 2023, A LOT happened. While it's difficult to confirm in exactly what order the follow events occurred, the biggest of which was Fntastic announcing it was closing down.
But they weren't just closing down. The Gotovtsev brothers set out to all but erase themselves from the internet. They removed all remaining videos from their YouTube channel and deleted their social media accounts, including LinkedIn. Every text and voice channel on The Day Before's official Discord server was either deleted or disabled, and the server-news channel Fntastic used to communicate progress on the game has been purged of every message.
When announcing their closure, Fntastic stated that it was due to the financial failure of The Day Before, and that they lacked the funds to continue supporting it. More on that in the next section, but in regard to Steam, this was yet another in a long line of unusual statements from the developer. When games are sold on Steam, Valve holds on to the revenue for the first month, and then pays out to the developer on the 30th of the following month.
However, Fntastic chose to declare it a financial failure only 4 days in, before they had even gotten paid. But for the most part this fact can really be ignored because it was obvious, they weren't going to make much anyway. On the same day, an unverified leak on Reddit showed an internal Teams message from Eduard Gotovtsev regarding the game's sales. The game had sold 201,076 units on Steam, with 91,694 of them being refunded. A return rate of 46%, which has got to be some kind of record.
These numbers would only get worse when, coinciding with Fntastic’s closure, the poor quality of the game, and the overwhelming controversy, Valve stepped in and delisted The Day Before from Steam.
Publisher Mytona also announced they were working with Steam to open up refunds for any players who choose to make one. As part of this, Steam amended its refund policy. Under normal circumstances, refunds on Steam must be requested within 14 days of purchase and have less than two hours of play time. But in the case of The Day Before, all those who purchased the game are approved for a refund, regardless of time played.
It was later announced on Dec. 22, 2023, via Twitter, that The Day Before will be retired completely with the servers being turned off on Jan. 22, 2024, and that Steam will be proactively refunding all remaining players who have not already had their purchase refunded.
Also on this day, it was noticed on Steam that the Developer name of Fntastic's previous game, The Wild Eight, had been changed to Eight Points. Unaware that this was the name they used for the original Kickstarter, many thought this was Fntastic trying to rebrand themselves in order to escape the fallout from The Day Before. But in fact it was The Wild Eight's publisher, HypeTrain Digital, that made the change in order to distance themselves from Fntastic and the ongoing controversy.
HypeTrain Digital confirmed this in a response to Eurogamer, saying, "Fntastic was the original developer of The Wild Eight, but after the game's release in Early Access, the developers decided to discontinue work on the project due to internal reasons within the studio. HypeTrain Digital took over the development independently. All business relations with Fntastic were terminated in 2017. Following the release of The Day Before on December 7, 2023, a wave of negative reviews for The Wild Eight began, unrelated to the game itself but associated with the original development studio, Fntastic. Yesterday, we made the decision to remove any mention of the developer Fntastic from the game's page."
Lastly, even on their way out, Fntastic couldn't help but make one last PR blunder. It goes without saying that gamers everywhere were more than frustrated with the developer and vented that frustration online. In a Twitter response to one of these disgruntled players calling them a disgrace, Fntastic simply said "This was our first big experience. Sh*t happens."
Fntastic's Fishy Financial Files
In the midst of Fntastic's closure, Yahoo Gaming SEA decided to pay a visit to the studio's Singapore office, having acquired the company’s address via Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA). The office turned out to be a co-op work space, and the manager told them that Fntastic was only using the address as a virtual office and had never actually been there. But this is whatever, no big deal. What's really interesting are the financial records they obtained.
According to Fntastic’s 2022 Financial Statement, the company brought in just over S$3.4 million ($2.6 million USD) in revenue, which many are presuming came from their publisher, Mytona. After S$1.8 million ($1.4 million USD) in Cost of Sales, S$613,148 ($463,803 USD) in General & Administrative Expenses, and S$146,314 ($110,676 USD) in Taxes, Fntastic was left with S$839,358 ($634,915 USD) in profit. But within those General & Administrative Expenses are two numbers that stand out, these included the Directors (the brothers) receiving a S$200,000 ($151,285 USD) Salary, and a MASSIVE S$308,833 ($233,610 USD) in Travel Expenses. For context, that's like flying first class from Washington, D.C. to London once a week for a year.
Furthermore, the company’s Statement of Cash Flow showed it had S$1.4 million ($1.05 million USD) sitting in the bank, and that they received a term loan of S$481,118 ($362,587 USD). In Fntastic's statement announcing their closure, they mention that "All income received is being used to pay off debts to our partners," but it is unknown what debts the business has aside from this term loan, as they did not acquire any grants from the Singapore government to help with the game's development. All of these financial details have cast doubt on how Fntastic seemingly lacked the funds to continue working on The Day Before, adding to the speculation that the game was a scam.
Hostile Work Environment
On Dec. 12, 2023, in an interview with DualShockers, an ex-Fntastic developer revealed many behind the scene details on the game's development. Most notably, The Day Before was never intended to be an MMO.
When asked why the marketing of the game differed from what was being developed, they highlighted a lack of communication from Fntastic's founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev, saying, “No one could explain that. Maybe the CEOs knew something and didn’t tell us. Technically speaking, there were no RPG mechanics implemented. There was no possible way to put a lot of people in the world or make the world bigger. From the beginning, the idea was that servers would be under 100 people — that is not an MMO. No clans, no raids, closed hubs. It’s been that way for over two years.”
They added that the founders "made every gameplay and design decision" and "Disagreeing with the founders' opinions, even if it seemed obvious, risked you being fired. When it came to heated disputes, contracts were usually terminated. Employees often avoided direct conflict with them because they were afraid of losing their jobs." The brothers would also make massive development decisions based on whims, “A lot of good ideas from our team were disregarded because [Eduard and Aisen] didn’t approve them. Like voice chat. Anyone who complained too much was kicked off the team. A lot of stupid ideas were implemented, removed and re-implemented because the brothers thought they knew better than us about what people wanted. A huge amount of time and work was wasted because jobs had to be done and re-done.”
Following the controversial launch of The Day Before, developers at Fntastic were laid off without warning. Reported by Shazoo, a Russian video game outlet, after Fntastic's closure on Dec. 11, Russian job search and recruitment platform Headhunter.ru was flooded with resumes from those recently laid off by the studio. Shazoo reached out to several of them, who agreed to speak anonymously about what happened at Fntastic.
The responses were exactly what you would expect. They confirmed the wasted manhours previously reported. Some said the only reason they took the job was because they had no other options. And many feel that having worked at Fntastic will only be a stain on their career.
"I was fired in one day. They said that the studio was closing, there was only enough money for the final payment for the time worked - write an application and enter the market. Such a gift for the New Year."
"There was no question of any compensation. They cut off my access and told me that the studio was over."
"When the offer came, there wasn't much of a choice. The game development market in the Russian Federation is half-empty, there were no alternative options, and in my case, this is the experience that you need for your future career. I took a chance, but it didn't work." They went on to say, "We tried, a lot of ideas went to the desk or to the garbage, the developments and man-hours were in the same place, many times we had to do everything anew due to the dismissal of employees. One artist deleted everything he had done in two months of work, he had been fired before that, and he took everything with him."
"I worked for a year and during this time there were 8 people in my team. People came and left on their own after three months. Or they were kicked out for some trifle or disagreement with the leadership. I've had a good experience at work, but I'm not sure if this line on my resume will be okay in the future — I'm not proud to work here, the result is visible on Twitter and on streams."
I think the most important takeaway here is that the actual development team genuinely tried to make a good game, but the Gotovtsev brothers ruled the studio with an iron fist and hindered development at every turn.
The Day Before was the most wishlisted game on Steam but drowned in a controversial ocean of its own making. Bold visions and grand ambitions soon became mired and mocked amid delays, false advertisement, trademark disputes, allegations of plagiarism, unpaid labor, unqualified management, financial ineptitude, and incompetent PR. Although dead and dying, The Day Before will undoubtedly live forever in the annals of video game infamy.
