Last Thursday, The Day Before went on salea fairly long-awaited release (it was announced in 2021, although the studio is believed to have been working on it for some time by then), and which we learned about its technical requirements at the beginning of the year, shortly before its launch. was postponed The premise was promising: an MMO that takes us to a post-apocalyptic world located in the present, but in which a pandemic wiped out a large part of the population, which turned into murderous creatures that populate the most representative places on the American west coast.

The starting point, the concept, seems interesting, and the first images and videos we were able to see were incredible. Unbelievable because the graphics level was spectacular, yes, but also because it came from a “small” studio. Would they really be able to produce such a promising game? Fntastic’s latest publications have already encouraged us to openly mistrust what they’re cooking up, and tweet which they published just three days before departure, already gave us an idea of ​​what actually awaits us… more or less.

📢 #day before #fntastic pic.twitter.com/nKJ3mqSHnt

— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 4, 2023

Unfortunately, we have become accustomed to apologetic statements after unsuccessful starts, but I think this is the first time this type of communication has happened before launch. Goosebumps, spiky hair, everything suggested that The Day Before could make good on Skull Island: Rise of Kong and Lord of the Rings: Gollum, the two strongest contenders for worst game of the year so far. Not for nothing, let’s remember that the latter cost the studio, once the creator of such gems as the Deponia saga, his life.

So with the apologies published before The Day Before was released, we could already be clear about two things. The first was of course that the game will be a disaster, but hey, the signs had been warning us along those lines for quite some time, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. And the second was that at Fntastic they were aware of how wrong they did some things and how horribly wrong they did others. And well, in the past we’ve seen cases of deplorable launches becoming very good games. They should be given the benefit of the doubteven though we obviously didn’t buy the game.

Official statement. #fntastic #day before #propnight pic.twitter.com/AKcRHeIaIW

— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 11, 2023

Big mistake. As you can see in the tweet about this paragraph, which is also now the only thing displayed on their website, Fntastic, the studio that created The Day Before, has announced its closure. The closure, which is said to be due to a lack of funds to maintain the activity and which translates, as we can read in the said statement, into the cancellation of all publication plans, not only the expansion of the game, but even the patches that would be necessary to correct the amount mistakes he has made.

The statement, which is dated December 12 (tomorrow) on the website, also insists on something we could already read in the pre-launch apology, That said, The Day Before wasn’t a hoax, which we can understand in the sense of the deliberate release (and with minimal investment) of such a poor game, earning as much money and fear as possible. And I can believe it, yes, but we should think about what exactly is fraud.

From the first moment, Fntastic told us that they were going to sell us a Ferrari, and it is likely that this was their original plan, but they must have been aware for some time that they were making a Lada (with all due respect to the brand, please understand). However, instead of acting accordingly and honestly, they preferred to maintain user expectations. what would you call it? And if we add to that that since the publication of this news it is still on sale on Steam (in early access mode) and that of course the money is not going to be returned to unhappy buyers?