The Day Before stands out as the most vibrant yet defunct game I’ve ever witnessed. Despite the servers being officially shut down and the game disappearing, the extent of mismanagement continues to unfold.
In a recent report by Game Two, referencing GameStar, former members of the now-defunct developer Fntastic claim the project experienced constant restarts, lacked creative vision, suffered from poor working conditions, and imposed crunch on employees, who had to pay fines for it, further casting a grim shadow over the already disastrous project.
PC Gamer noticed the report, gathering accounts from 16 former Fntastic employees, a controversial “volunteer” worker, and seven members of The Day Before’s publisher, Mytona.
The report delves into Fntastic’s background in other games, such as The Wild Eight, a survival title with decent reviews. However, these games faced sabotage due to over-designed trend-chasing, a pattern that persisted in The Day Before’s development.
The Day Before began as a small-scale, cartoony survival game with zombies and limited multiplayer options. However, co-founders Eduard and Aysen Gotovtsev, according to sources, frequently disrupted development by incorporating ideas from popular games like GTA Online, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, The Division, and more.
Design specifications and goals reportedly changed almost daily, with significant work discarded in pursuit of over-scoped objectives. The creative direction was so erratic that one designer discovered the game’s supposed MMO status only through trailers, a fact that contradicted its actual nature.
The report also criticizes Fntastic’s work culture, highlighting the use of unpaid volunteers, exploitation of inexperienced developers in rural Russia, and burdening employees with debt through work equipment contracts paid off via salary.
Fines were allegedly imposed for unsatisfactory work, reaching as high as $1,930 for poor voice performances. The extreme crunch culture, with some claiming to work over 16 hours a day, along with monitoring through Fntastic’s in-house messaging software, added to the stress.
The lead-up to The Day Before’s launch is described as a catastrophe, with minimal testing involving just a handful of testers at the studio. The game’s leads reportedly lacked understanding about the consequences of a full server, contributing to the connection issues at launch.
The Gotovtsev brothers were absent during the game’s implosion, leaving the team to issue bug fixes until their abrupt return to shut down the studio. They quickly invited willing developers to join their new studio, focusing on mobile games. Fntastic’s latest public statement attributes The Day Before’s failure to a “hate campaign.”
