HomeNewsThe Day Before
Less than two months after its catastrophic Early Access release
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Mytona Fntastic
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Mytona Fntastic
The Day Before, once Steam’s most wishlisted game before experiencing a bizarre journey throughmultiple delays, accusations of being a scam, apparent legal disputes and a catastrophic Early Access launch, will shut down its servers in one month. The effective end to the game will accompany refunds for anyone who brought it on Steam.
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As The Day Before prepares to put a final full stop on its run-on sentence of a tale, let’s recap. Developers Fntastic revealed the game back at the start of 2021, showing off what appeared to be anopen-worldMMO full of zombies and both elements of settlement-building and looter-shooters.
That launch was, to put it mildly,a complete shitstorm, garnering thousands of negative reviews that plummeted The Day Before to among Steam’s worst-reviewed games of all time. Criticism targeted the game’s lack of polish, comparisons to extraction shooters rather thanMMOsand general absence of quality in its lacklustre gameplay and experience.
Image credit:Fntastic
The wave of criticism led to further accusations that the game had been a scam all along, and resulted in developers Fntastic announcingjust four days laterthat they had closed down due to a lack of funds to complete the game’s development. At the time, the studio said that the game’s servers - along with those for its previous game Propnight - would remain live for the time being despite the game’s future being “unknown”.
That future became a lot more known earlier today, as Fntastic have now confirmed that The Day Before’s servers will switch off on January 22nd 2024 - exactly one month from today, and less than two months after it launched. Being an online-only game, the move will effectively make The Day Before unplayable.
pic.twitter.com/GIX4ZAztny— The Day Before (@playdaybefore)December 22, 2023
pic.twitter.com/GIX4ZAztny
In a statement posted to the game’s X account, publishers Mytona added that they would refund all players who had brought the game on Steam - both those who had already requested a refund and anyone else who owned the game, who will get their money back automatically.
“We extend our gratitude for the community’s support throughout the project’s life,” the publishers wrote. “Unfortunately, without a development team, we had no alternative choice but to officially close the project.”
While The Day Before certainly wasn’t worth playing or paying for - ourown Ed saidhe “would’ve rather handed a stinging nettle £40 to line my socks than spend another minute in this empty husk” - its very-long-then-very-short saga has been a strange, tragic story of apparent grand ambitions gone awry. With players’ money (if not their time) refunded at least, hopefully some lesson has been learned somewhere for the future.
