The developer of Steam disaster The Day Before has insisted it really is shutting down after scepticism emerged online following what looked like an attempt to change the company name.
The Day Before was once Steam’s most-wishlisted game, but following its Early Access launch last week it was met with backlash for failing to deliver a game even close to what was promised.
IGN’s The Day Before review returned a rare 1/10. We said: “The Day Before is easily one of the worst games I’ve ever played, to the point where I’m afraid to continue running it on my PC — and if you didn’t manage to try it, you can count yourself as one of the lucky ones.”
With player numbers in free-fall and an ‘overwhelmingly negative’ user review rating on Steam, The Day Before developer Fntastic made the shock announcement that it was closing down. Soon after, Fntastic removed the purchase button on the game’s Steam page and wiped its presence from the internet. All this just four days after The Day Before launched in Early Access.
Amid refund chaos, players spotted that the name of the developer of Fntastic’s previous survival action-adventure, The Wild Eight, was changed from Fntastic to Eight Points on Steam. This sparked speculation that Fntastic was not shutting down, but attempting to leave its tarnished reputation behind by changing its name.
Speaking to Eurogamer, The Wild Eight publisher Hype Train Digital insisted the change was made because of a deluge of negative reviews received following The Day Before’s launch.
“Fntastic was the original developer of The Wild Eight, but after the game’s release in Early Access, the developers decided to discontinue work on the project due to internal reasons within the studio,” reads the statement. “Hypetrain Digital took over the development independently. All business relations with Fntastic were terminated in 2017.”
Despite this, The Wild Eight is sat on a ‘very negative’ user review rating for recent reviews, and an ‘mostly positive’ user review rating for all reviews.
Fntastic, which sparked further backlash this week when it responded to an angry customer by saying “s**t happens”, tweeted again to address the speculation. “We’re closing,” it said. “Rumours suggesting we have changed our name are not true. We have not been affiliated with The Wild Eight for many years.”
Then: “And refunds on Steam are available for any customer who chooses to return The Day Before, regardless of the number of hours or days they have spent playing it. Steam confirmed this.”
With The Day Before seemingly dead, the future of the brand and IP is in the hands of publisher Mytona, which is reported to have invested heavily into Fntastic for the development and release of the game.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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