A day before the developers explain why the game crashed

The story behind The Day Before is bizarre. Advertised as an MMO, it was at one point the most requested game on Steam. Then it started and everyone hated it. It wasn't even an MMO and was much more like an extraction shooter – albeit a very basic one that fell apart very quickly due to bugs and performance issues.

Now Fntastic is back and asking the gaming community for a second chance. Within that, he has his own take on what went wrong, pinning much of The Day Before's woes on over-promising and poorly communicated marketing.

Fntastic shares his thoughts on the day before the disastrous launch

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” Fntastic said, announcing that he was back and hoping to raise funds for his next game. “We deeply apologize to everyone for The Day Before and take full responsibility for what happened.

The studio responded to the tweets, explaining in one response what it sees as the problem with The Day Before. “Among the factors that led to the failure were over-ambitious goals with a low indie budget, a team with no AAA experience, and excessive marketing, which we deeply regret.”

However, many seem unconvinced. In another response, the studio is accused of trying to cheat its player base. In response, the studio writes: “How did we cheat? We returned all the money.” [sic]”.

Now Fntastic is asking for money again. He started a $15,000 Kickstarter, all in aid of a completely different game called Escape Factory.

Unsurprisingly, it has seen little success so far. As Fntastic himself mentions on social media, The Day Before failed to deliver on marketing, so few will likely trust the studio again. When gameplay footage of The Day Before was finally shown, it barely resembled the product that was promised. It also looked incredibly unfinished, which was evident when it finally launched on December 7th to mostly negative reviews.

Four days later Fntastic said The Day Before had “failed financially” and the studio would be closed. The servers went down the following month and the money was sent to the players.

However, there were signs of trouble long before launch. The studio was accused of copying trailers for other games in its own promotional materials and even failed to trademark its own game title. In the last release, the game was temporarily removed from Steam before launch, and the whole ordeal led many to believe that The Day Before wasn't actually a real game.

The developers later came out saying that they were crushed to get the game out, and were even fined for “minor mistakes” in their work (via IGN). With so many bad things in every department, few expected Fntastic to come back.

It remains to be seen if Fntastic can get Escape Factory off the ground. But right now, he's still trying to fend off The Day Before naysayers, so the studio definitely has something to prove — especially now that it's asking for money again.