SINGAPORE (CNA) – Fntastic, a video game studio based in Singapore, has officially declared its closure just five days after the underwhelming launch of its highly-anticipated game, The Day Before.
In an announcement shared on X (formerly Twitter), the company, originally established in Russia and headquartered in Singapore, expressed remorse over the financial setback caused by The Day Before’s disappointing performance.
“Today, we regretfully announce the closure of Fntastic studio. Unfortunately, The Day Before did not fare well financially, leaving us without the necessary funds to sustain our operations. All received income is being directed towards settling debts owed to our partners.
“We sincerely apologize if we fell short of your expectations. Despite our best efforts, we acknowledge that we miscalculated our capabilities,” the statement read.
The Day Before, an ambitious open-world post-apocalyptic survival massively multiplayer online game (MMO), faced delays before its eventual release, contributing to the studio’s financial challenges.
It was still among digital distribution service Steam’s most wishlisted games – several trailers served to build up the hype – only to receive overwhelmingly negative reviews on launch day, with users reporting of game-breaking bugs, crashes, poor performance and multiplayer server issues.
According to Steam’s most played statistics, the game had over 38,000 concurrent players on December 7, but that figure dwindled to just over 3,000 across four days, becoming one of the 10 worst-reviewed games of all time on the platform.
Gamers who had paid the early-access price of USD39 were left angered, with many users demanding a refund after the game failed to live up to its promises.
A tweet by Fntastic, calling The Day Before “our first big experience” and that “shit happens” only stoked further criticism.
“Unbelievable that you guys hyped this game up so much and this is the end result,” a user on X said. “You guys are an absolute disgrace to the video game industry.”
xQc, who is one of the most popular streamers on gaming site Twitch with over 10 million followers, lambasted the game as “flat-out deceiving”, saying on a recent Twitch stream that The Day Before is “not an MMO, not an open world”.
Users on Reddit also labelled the game as an “abomination” and called for a boycott.
In response to the criticism, Fntastic said that it is “important to note” that we did not take any money from the public during the development of The Day Before and that its team had “worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into the game”.
The Day Before’s publisher Mytona posted a statement on X on Tuesday, saying that it was “sorry for the fact that the game didn’t meet the expectations of the majority of the players”.
“Today we will work with Steam to open up refunds for any players who choose to make a refund.”
Fntastic has since shut down its website and several of its social media accounts, including its YouTube channel and LinkedIn page.
The game is still listed on Steam, but is no longer purchasable.
