Why is The Day Before developer shutting down? Reason for the studio's closure explored

After much trouble and delays in its launch, The Day Before was finally released worldwide on December 7, 2023. It should have been happy news for the game's developer, Fntastic Studio, who has led previous launches as well. However, in less than a week since its latest release, the studio has announced its closure.

This has left many pondering the possible reasons. The Day Before has seen a barrage of negative reviews on Steam, which have been exacerbated by rumors of positive reviews being written by bots.

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Reason for closure of The Day Before makers Fntastic Studio

Developing video games can be incredibly challenging, especially for titles that promise to deliver a grand experience. To that end, The Day Before generated numerous doubts regarding its promises.

And four days following its release, developer Fntastic has run into massive financial troubles. In an official post, the developers have informed that they're using the proceeds from the game sales to pay off debts:

"Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue. All income received is being used to pay off debts to our partners. We invested all our efforts, resources, and man-hours into the development of The Day Before, which was our first huge game."

It's unclear as to what could have caused the financial troubles in the first place. It's worth mentioning that their previous release, Propnight, also failed to match expectations. The recent launch seems to have been a far more expensive undertaking.

Fntastic also stated that the financial troubles preclude the release of any post-launch patch:

"We really wanted to release new patches to reveal the full potential of the game, but unfortunately, we don't have the funding to continue the work."

As of writing, the future of both Prop Night and the latest survival MMO remains unknown. The servers will remain open for now, but any updates or further developments seem unlikely.

It's unclear if players will be refunded. The game's messy release has compounded the situation. Owing to its underwhelming gameplay and negative reviews, the future of TDB remains shrouded in mystery. Notably, players have responded to Fntastic's announcement with a lot of vitriol.