Fntastic, the developer behind the troubled game The Day Before, has hit Twitter with a series of tweets depicting a few difficulties the team has had, alongside a promise to show players that the game is both real, and it is progressing smoothly. In addition to the removal of the game to a trademark dispute, Fntastic has also stated that several videos have been removed from YouTube as well.
The Day Before has been going through several issues which has culminated in a second delay to the release of the game, a trademark dispute that Fntastic initially attributed to the delay that has since been debunked, and now the removal of some of the videos for The Day Before from their YouTube channel. Fntastic has taken to their twitter to address several of these issues. Earlier this week, Fntastic attempted to put disinformation on blast by posting a short message stating that they hope to help small studios fight the kind of misinformation they feel they’ve been a victim of.
#thedaybefore #indiedev #gamedev pic.twitter.com/p9hOjONVIa
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) February 8, 2023
It has been clear from the years of coverage of The Day Before that the team is not well suited to provide consistent updates to their fans, but they attempted to address that in a response to a fan that simply pointed out that they went dark for months without a word that the game was still in development.
“We don't have a marketing department at all. All our resources go to game development. But we'll get better at communications, thanks.”
– Fntastic Twitter Account, The Day Before
While the team at Fntastic probably does have a short supply of dedicated media staff, The Day Before is also published by Mytona, which would assist to market the game. One major sticking point to this would be that the Fntastic Twitter account was not dark over the past year, only that, information regarding The Day Before was missing, while Prop Night had numerous tweets and images by comparison. Later the same day Fntastic asked their followers if they would like to see a video on how The Day Before has developed over the years.
???? if you want to watch a video on how we're developing #thedaybefore from 2019. The game has constantly changed and improved since then. It became possible with a real internal breakthrough of our Fntastic team and our publisher Mytona support.
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) February 8, 2023
This morning the team confirmed that they will provide a video of the progress since the game started development in 2019. While there has been no mention of when the video can be expected, this no doubt comes at a time where players are reluctant to believe that the game will meet it’s new November 10th, 2023 launch date.
A video of the development of #thedaybefore since 2019 will be posted soon. The game is getting better every day. Our team works hard to give you the best possible product. pic.twitter.com/uvdoUgrmIX
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) February 12, 2023
Finally in another curious twist, the team stated that YouTube has removed some videos from the official Fntastic YouTube account.
#thedaybefore pic.twitter.com/2q98hE1i9f
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) February 12, 2023
The story depicts that the “owner” of the trademark is someone that worked on a calendar app that was built separately from the games division of Fntastic. The tweet is meant to explain the circumstances of the trademark dispute, however, it has only led to more questions. For example, as of this article, the only videos that seemed to have been removed are the most recent videos, including the 10-minutes of gameplay that received so much backlash just 10 days ago. The YouTube channel still houses several other videos with The Day Before’s branding. There has also been no attempt to reupload the missing videos to their Discord channel, or host it on their website.
We can’t say for sure what will happen with The Day Before. For now, we can only hope that the fans of the game can stay vigilant as Fntastic finds a ladder to dig themselves out of this hole. We hope the team has a speedy recovery and I think fans and foes alike are looking forward to their developmental progress video when they release it.