The Day Before developer Fntastic has responded to claims against the game in a new statement.
The statement was posted on X (formerly Twitter) and comes a month after the studio confirmed it would be closing down, with The Day Before delisted from Steam.
In response to claims that it “deceived players”, Fntastic claimed that it worked “hard and honestly” on the zombie survival title for five years. The studio states that it didn’t take any money from users (refunds were issued to everybody who purchased the game in December), that it didn’t use crowdfunding, and didn’t offer pre-orders.
While these claims are true, the studio did use crowdsourcing. Unpaid volunteers were used on the title – Fntastic previously stated that in lieu of payment, developers were given “cool rewards, participation certificates, and free codes”.
The statement does mention that the studio had “excellent relationships with our [development] team”, but doesn’t mention anything about the unpaid volunteers.
Instead, Fntastic claimed that it “assisted employees with relocation and healthcare” in an attempt to decry and disprove former employees, one of who claimed that they had “contact with certain people who worked closely with Fntastic” and that those employees were “treated like crap” (per PCGamesN).
“They were very tired and had to overwork,” the employee stated.
One of the more notable things mentioned in the statement is that the studio “implemented everything shown in the trailers”, and that The Day Before wasn’t missing major features at launch.
However, the debut trailer for the game described it as an “open-world MMO survival” title, despite The Day Before launching as an extraction shooter. That same trailer also said that the game features a “huge, stunningly detailed world destroyed by a terrible virus”, though the game didn’t feature an open world in the final early access release.
“Certain bloggers made huge money by creating false content with huge titles,” added Fntastic. While no writers are mentioned by name, it’s likely the studio is referencing negative coverage surrounding The Day Before‘s unpaid developers, thousands of negative reviewers from fans who felt cheated, and a controversial gameplay trailer.
The statement concludes by describing a thought experiment where the subject is asked to count pink objects in a room before naming all the blue items in that room. The developer alleged that “negative bias” from journalists reporting on the game, who were “making money on hate,” affected the way that players perceived the game, and that players should have looked at “unbiased gameplay like [streamer] Dr Disrespect’s stream”.
In other gaming news, Palworld could be coming to PlayStation 5.