The Day Before came, failed, and is now dead. A new report details the mishandling of the game’s development, from repeated, erratic overhauls, the infamous volunteer labor, fining employees for mistakes, and learning the game was an MMO from the trailers.
The new reports are from German outlets Game Two and GameStar (via PC Gamer) which interviewed 16 anonymous former Fntastic employees working on The Day Before. While the game might have had real potential at some point, the employees tell stories about chaotic work environments and decisions by the co-founders, Eduard and Aysen Gotovtsev, to change things about the in-development build based on what was popular and that they had been playing. For example, the team was told to brighten up the city in The Day Before because the brothers had played Spider-Man 2 and wanted a bright city like that. Remember, that this was first pitched and teased as a gritty post-apocalyptic title about survival and zombies.
Initially, according to the report, the game was supposed to be a small survival game with stylized art set in a freezing, rural town where zombies were suddenly present. Then the changes came when the excess ambition took over. First, a more polished, realistic art style, then a larger town, before finally scrapping the original concept and revamping it. According to the sources, in 2021, the first teasers happened, and garnered attention and interest, but this was not based on any actual game, but on the brothers taking influence from other trailers and games like The Last of Us and The Division, and having something put together to show. This was how some employees found out the game was allegedly an MMO. In a trailer.
After a series of unrealistic deadlines, multiple changes, and what seems like little direction, the team, more or less unpaid or severely underpaid and subject to a ton of crunch. Overtime was “voluntary” and unpaid, and the mostly young employees, many in the former USSR and other countries where they had few options. One even reportedly begged for a few hours of free time to eat and shower.
The brothers reportedly knew the game was unfinished, never really tested it, and reportedly fined two employees about $1,900 for bad voice acting work and fired another employee days before the disaster of a launch for a bug they found. They're allegedly working on a new game.
That’s right, despite saying there would be beta for “volunteers” there was no testing at all. They wanted to get it out the door after a number of delays.
There’s a lot more in the full video on how things fell apart, and the employees’ stories are important in a situation like this.
