The Day Before developer resurfaces to blame failure on "hate campaign"

eurogamer.net:

You might have thought the The Day Before's sorry saga had ended last year when developer Fntastic, amid claims of misleading marketing and Overwhelmingly Negative Steam reviews, yanked the game from sale and promptly shut its doors just four days into its early access launch. But no, the studio has now reemerged with a lengthy statement blaming the whole thing on a «hate campaign» orchestrated by «certain bloggers».

It's not entirely clear why the anonymous voice behind Fntastic's social media account has chosen now to resurface and defend the supposedly defunct studio, but its newly published tweet offers a lenghty, ten paragraph rebuttal to what it calls «a lot of misinformation… on the internet from supposedly anonymous sources.»

The Day Before — at one time Steam's most wishlisted game — finally launched into Steam early access last December, following repeated (and sometimes bizarre) delays and frequent accusations it was a scam. Almost immediately, it was hit by complaints it bore little resemblance to the open-world zombie MMO promised in its striking 2021 reveal trailer, and with Steam reviews soon tipping into Overwhelmingly Negative, Fntastic suddenly announced it was shutting down just four days later, saying it had «failed financially».

Refunds followed and The Day Before's servers officially went offline forever earlier this week, on 22nd January — but Fntastic clearly isn't ready to end the story there. Its newly published social media post takes aim at accusations it deceived players («We worked hard and honestly on the game for five years»), that it deceived and investors («We still have a great relationship with our publisher»), at critical reports from alleged former employees («Our low churn rate and the fact that half of those who left returned to the company demonstrate our