Last December 7, Fntastic launched in Early Access The Day Beforea title awaited for several years and which presented itself as a MMO post-pandemic with an atmosphere reminiscent of The Division And The Last of Us. A title full of great promise, but at launch, players quickly became disillusioned.
The Day Before was finally A extraction shootera simple cooperative shooter far from the promise of MMO and above all full of bugs. A few days after launch, Fntastic announced its closure, abandoning players and the game. Fortunately, the publisher MyTona arranged with Steam so that all players can get a refund, no matter if they played for more than two hours, but the damage is done: The Day Before is now the scam of the decade for thousands of players.
But how did the title go from MMO most awaited by fans of survival games for such a scam? Well according to a former employee of Fntasticit was a foregone conclusion. Interviewed anonymously by DualShockershe affirms that The Day Before was never developed as a massively multiplayer game:
I never saw it as an MMO project. No one on the team knows why they said it was an MMO. It’s always been a third-person shooter with cooperative mechanics. No RPG mechanics were implemented – adding skills was an idea, they were in prototype stage, but nothing more.
This clearly underlines communication problems towards players, but also internally. The anonymous developer mentions in particular the founders of FntasticEduard and Aisen Gotovtsev:
Nobody can explain that. Maybe the CEOs knew things they didn’t tell us. Technically speaking, there were no RPG mechanics implemented. There was no way to put lots of people in a world, or to make the world bigger. From the start, the idea was that the servers would have fewer than 100 people – this is not an MMO. No clans, no raids, closed hubs. It had been like this for over two years.
Many of our team’s good ideas were ignored because Eduard and Aisen didn’t approve of them. Like voice chat. Anyone who complained too much was kicked off the team. A lot of stupid ideas were implemented, scrapped, and reapplied because the brothers thought they knew better than us what people wanted. A huge amount of time and work was wasted as things had to be done and redone.
If you disagree with the founders’ opinions, even if it seems obvious, you risk being fired. When it came to heated conflicts, contracts were usually terminated. Employees often avoided direct conflict with them because they were afraid of losing their jobs.
The developer also explains that The Day Before was originally intended as a mix of Rust, DayZ and Escape from Tarkovtwo multiplayer survival games and one extraction shooter. Which could have been interesting, if the title had been designed intelligently, without internal discord and being clear with the players from the start. But the problem seems to come from CEO of Fntasticwho announced the closure of the studio to their employees, indicating that the game was a commercial failure, without adding anything.
Furthermore, the anonymous developer confirms information that leaked online: The Day Before has sold more than 200,000 copies, but around 90,000 have already been refunded. A second figure which will undoubtedly continue to rise, but not the first, the game no longer being available for purchase on Steam. Some players imagine that MyTona would have closed Fntastic to get the money back, but the anonymous developer believes he didn’t make a cent from the sales.
The Day Before, so it’s already ancient history, but players will remember it (and make fun of it) for a long time to come. You can find The Division 2 from €7.62 on Amazon, Cdiscount, there Fnac And Gamesplanet.
| Clint008 Editor – Tester |
